Archive for the ‘blake schwartz’ tag

The title of my previous post was pretty simple: “Nats 2014 Draft == failure.” And it resulted in a rather spirited debate in the comments about the 2014 draft, the 2008 draft in hindsight, etc.

In that debate, I postulated my benchmarks for judging whether or not a team’s draft was “good” or not. Here were the six guidelines I stated for judgement, going round by round/section by section in the draft:

a. 1st rounder: future MLB above average regular to all-star

b. 2nd rounder: future MLB regular

c. 3rd-5th: expect at least one future MLB player in at least a backup/bullpen role

d. 6th-10th: hope for at least one player to reach the MLB level.

e. 11th-20th: hope for at least three players who matriculate to AA or higher

f. 20th and above: hope for one-two players to matriculate to AA or higher

Lets go back through all 10 Nats drafts and see whether these guidelines hold up. For each of the 6 requirements, we’ll give a quick “yes/no the condition was met” for each year. Critical to this analysis is the Nats DraftTracker XLS, milb.com and baseball-reference.com for searching for old players. Also useful is the Baseball America executive database, which populated the staff in charge of each draft.

Editors Note post-posting: I’ve added in the total known bonus amounts, per suggestion in the comments. Data taken from the Draft Tracker. Actual figures are likely higher because most bonus figures past the 10th round are unknown (but likely minimal). Also per good suggestion, I’m adding in the draft position for context, since its far easier to get a future all-star if picking in the top 5 versus later on.

d. Yes: 6th rounder Marco Estrada has turned into a decent starter (albeit for someone else after we released him)

e. Yes: 11th rounder John Lannan and 12th rounder Craig Stammen turned into MLBers, far above expectations here. 18th rounder Tim Pahuta had long ML career for us, playing 3 years at AA.

f. Yes: 33rd rounder Ryan Butcher was a 6yr MLFA who left the org but now has MLB experience with Atlanta. No other 20th+ round draftees made it out of A-ball, but Butcher’s MLB matriculation makes up for it.

2005: Success, inarguably. 6 guys matriculating to the majors is a winning draft, especially considering the lack of a 2nd or 3rd round pick, the ownership confusion, and the budget restrictions put on the team.

a. No: 1st rounder Chris Marrero looks like a 4-a guy at best and 1st rounder Colten Willems never made it above A-ball.

b. No: the team failed to sign 2nd rounder Sean Black and 2nd rounder Stephen Englund never made it out of low-A.

c. No: none of their 3rd-5th picks made the majors. The highest one of these guys got was 5th rounder Corey VanAllen, who did pitch in AAA after passing through the rule-5 draft and finished out his 6-years with the org. VanAllen is in Indy ball in 2014.

d. No: they didn’t even sign their 7th, 9th or 10th round picks. The closest they got to a MLBer here was 6th rounder Zech Zinicola, who played at AAA for quite a while, was rule-5 picked and returned, and now sits in Baltimore’s AA team.

e. Yes: 12th rounder Cole Kimball made it the majors briefly, while 17th rounder Erik Arnesen, 18th rounder Adam Carr and 13th rounder Hassan Pena all toiled in AAA for several years.

f. Yes, sort of. We’re all well aware of the success of 41st rounder Brad Peacock, but he was picked under the “draft-and-follow” system that no longer exists. So while yes it was a 41st round pick, in our current system Peacock wouldn’t have been picked at all and/or wouldn’t have signed but would have been picked the subsequent year based on his great first-college juco season. Of the rest of the 20th+ round picks, one guy had a couple months in AA (26th rounder Brett Logan) to serve as a backup catcher; he hit .102/.170/.122 in 20 games in 2007 and was released.

2006: Failure: 3 guys who have MLB appearances but near zero impact for this team. Peacock enabled the Nats to get Gio Gonzalez but I think we see now that Peacock wasn’t the driving prospect in that deal (now that Derek Norris has made an all-star team).

For as much as went right for the team in the 2005 draft, it went wrong in 2006. Was the lack of signing their 7th, 9th and 10th round picks evident of “fiscal restraint” demanded by the other 29 owners? Clearly to me, the focus on HS drafted personnel in this draft has Bowden’s hands all over it, and almost none of them panned out in the slightest.

a. No: The team went one-for-three on its first rounders: Michael Burgess got to AA in his fourth pro season but never further, was flipped for Tom Gorzelanny. Josh Smoker‘s failure has been well documented here. But Ross Detwiler, for all the complaining about his usage and role in this space, did make the majors and looked like a good 4th starter (in 2012). I still believe he could start in this league and is better than a long-man. However, the condition is that a first round pick turns into a successful regular, and this crop failed in all regards.

b. Yes. 2nd rounder Jordan Zimmermann is now a 2-time all-star and is probably the best 2nd round pick the organization has ever had. His successes make up for their other 2nd rounder Jake Smolinksi who has made his MLB debut but not until he became a 6-yr MLFA.

c. Yes. 4th rounder Derek Norris made the 2014 all-star team for Oakland. 3rd rounder Stephen Souza has debuted in the majors and looks quite promising (albeit blocked) for our AAA team. 5th rounder Brad Meyers toiled for us in AAA for years before being released this spring after a long injury recovery.

d. Yes: 10th round pick Patrick McCoy made it to AAA for us, signed with Detroit as a MLFA and debuted this year. We should note for the record though that 6th rounder Jack McGeary was paid as if he was a low-1st rounder and failed pretty spectacularly here.

e. Yes: 20th rounder Jeff Mandel was a long-serving org arm at AA and AAA. 11th rounder Bill Rhinehart was looking like a find, appearning on Nats system prospect lists for a while and getting to AAA before getting flipped for Jonny Gomes.

f. Yes: 28th rounder Boomer Whiting made it to Syracuse before getting released in 2011. 48th rounder (!) Kyle Gunderson was flipped for Logan Kensing in 2009 and made it to Miami/Florida’s AAA squad before getting released.

2007: Success: despite the 1st round failures and the McGeary disaster, the breadth of success in the other categories and the production of the remaining guys weighs out.

a. No: as is well documented, the Nats failed to sign 1st round pick Aaron Crow.

b. No/Inc: 2nd round pick Destin Hood has already passed through Rule-5 waivers once, but has found himself in 2014 and is hitting great for Syracuse (2014’s AAA line: .308/.353/.502). It does make one wonder if he’s worth adding to the 40-man once the season is over to keep him; he’s finishing his 7th pro year and is in line for minor league free agency.

c. Yes: 3rd rounder Danny Espinosa has his critics, but he’s at least a MLB backup or possibly more. 5th rounder Adrian Nieto has stuck with the White Sox after getting plucked in the Rule-5 draft last year and hasn’t been half bad.

d. Yes: 10th rounder Tommy Milone has shown his capabilities as a MLB starter. d. 6th-10th: hope for at least one player to reach the MLB level. 6th rounder Paul Demny remains in the system (on the D/L in Harrisburg) but doesn’t seem like he’ll go much higher at this point.

e. Yes: 16th rounder Tyler Moore has put in meaningful at-bats for the Nats for a few years now. And 19th rounder Steve Lombardozzi looks to be a solid utility/backup infielder in this league for years. Lastly I wonder if the team gave up on 15th rounder J.P. Ramirez too soon; he was paid like a 2nd round pick but was released prior to his MLFA period. He may have only made it to high-A, but his last season was somewhat decent.

f. No: as far as I can tell, nobody of note came in rounds 20 or above from this draft.

2008: Failure: How would you judge this draft? We failed to sign the first rounder, which for me is a huge negative. The second rounder may or may not ever debut in the majors, which is also for me a huge negative because of the huge prevalence of 1st and 2nd rounders on MLB rosters. But we got four (5 counting Nieto) other MLBers out of the rest of the draft, including some very deep-dive picks that you rarely find (Moore and Lombardozzi, aside from Peacock, are the two lowest round picks to ever make it to the majors for this team).

a. Yes: no arguing about either first round pick here: both Stephen Strasburg and Drew Storen have pitched at all-star levels in their careers.

b. No: 2nd Rounder Jeff Kobernus may have made his MLB debut, but he’s nowhere close to being a “regular” in the majors right now and doens’t seem to be trending that way either.

c. No: 3rd round pick Trevor Holder was a gross over-draft (albeit with known reasons; the team committed an *awful* lot of money to the first two guys on this list) and was released in 2013. 4th rounder A.J. Morris looked quite promising for us, was flipped in the Gorzelanny deal, and this year is pitching effectively for Pittsburgh’s AAA squad after being taken in the minor league Rule-5 portion last off-season. And the Nats failed to sign their 5th rounder. So even if Morris pans out as a MLB-capable player, he’s doing it for someone else.

d. Yes: 9th round pick Taylor Jordan was effective for the team last year and may yet figure in the team’s plans despite his mysterious D/L trip right now. And 6th round pick Michael Taylor has rocketed up the prospect lists for this team, is crushing AA pitching right now, is on the team’s 40-man roster and may very well get a look as 2015’s starting center fielder.

e. Yes: 12th rounder Nathan Karns made the org look quite intelligent when he gave spot starts in 2013 after rocketing up the farm system after finally recovering from arm issues. I wonder if the success they had with Karns was the first impetus for Rizzo to take more gambles on high-end-but-injured arms. 13th rounder Patrick Lehman has bounced around as an org arm for years. 11th rounder Juston Bloxom played a couple years in AA before getting released this year. 16th rounder Sean Nicol is splitting time between AA and AAA this year. Finally, I wanted to note something I never knew before studying this: the Nats drafted Marcus Strohman in the 18th round out of HS; this is the same Strohman who went in the first round three years later to Toronto and who is currently holding down a rotation spot for the playoff-pushing Blue Jays. Wow. He’s listed as a SS on the draft-tracker but clearly is a MLB-calibre starter.

f. Yes: 22nd rounder Danny Rosenbaum has been Syracuse’s “ace” for three seasons now. And a slew of guys drafted in the 20s stuck around for years as middle relievers (Mitchell Clegg, Matt Swynenberg, Evan Bronson, Rob Wort, and Shane McCatty). You just can’t ask for more out of your picks in rounds 20-30.

2009: Success: I’ll take a couple of misses in the 2nd and 3rd rounds given the amount of talent they picked up in the middle and late rounds. Great draft. 6 guys who have debuted in the majors with at least another one likely coming soon.

Note: from 2010 onwards, most of the judgement calls are still “in progress.” We’ll use projections and “small sample sizes” to pass judgement. It is what it is. Feel free to criticize in the comments about using projections and national pundit scouting reports to make judgements.

a. Yes: 1st rounder Bryce Harper has turned into everything the hype suggested. Fun fact; when he went on an rehab assignment in Potomac, he was the 2nd youngest guy on the roster. Remember that when you criticize the guy for not being better than he already is: if he was “playing by the rules,” he’d be jsut finishing his junior year of college.

b. No/Inc: 2nd rounder Sammy Solis has been one injury issue after another. He missed all of 2012 with Tommy John, came back slowly in 2013, but now sits on the AA D/L with another “elbow” issue. He was protected on the 40-man roster last fall, but you have to wonder what’s to come of him. He’s finishing his 5th pro season and he’s got exactly one start above A-Ball.

c. Yes/Inc: 4th rounder A.J. Cole was paid like a late first rounder, and after some struggles he’s really come onto the scene this year. He was already really young for AA and “solved” it, and is now in AAA holding his own. The other guys in this category are less impressive: both Rick Hague and Jason Martinson are repeating AA and not really hitting well enough to push for promotions. This could be a side-effect of the huge amount of money committed to Harper and Cole.

d. Yes: 9th round pick Aaron Barrett went from unknown/unrecognized prospect to the Nats 40-man roster last fall to being lights-out middle reliever in the major league pen this year. As a 9th round college senior pick. 8th rounder Matthew Grace may be next; after toiling as a mediocre starter, he became a reliever in 2013 and has been lights out in AA and AAA this year. And he’s not just a LOOGY: 56 IP in 33 appearances and he’s given up just 6 ER in that time.

e. Yes: 15th round pick David Freitas, after getting traded to Oakland for Kurt Suzuki, got traded again to Baltimore and now is in AAA. 12th round pick Robbie Ray has made his MLB debut for Detroit after going over in the Doug Fister deal. 11th rounder Neil Holland toils in the Harrisburg pen admirably.

f. Yes: 23rd rounder Colin Bates and 26th rounder Christopher Manno both are in the Harrisburg pen. 22nd rounder Cameron Selik made it to AA before hitting his ceiling and being released earlier this year. And 32nd rounder Randolph Oduber is a starting OF in Potomac with decent splits and a shot of moving up.

2010: Success: It may have been a no-brainer to take Harper, and it may have been an example of the “checkbook” winning in their picks of Cole and Ray, but you have to hand it to this team; they bought two high-end prep guys out of their college and they’re both looking like huge successes. And they got a MLB servicable reliever out of a college senior sign who they paid just $35,000 in bonus money. Great work.

a. Yes: 1st rounder Anthony Rendon was on everyone’s “all star snub” lists this year, while their other 1st rounder Alex Meyer remains one of the top pitching prospects in the game and seems likely to debut later this year. Their supp-1st rounder Brian Goodwin remains on every pundit’s prospect lists even if he seemingly has been passed on the organizational “future starting Center-fielder” depth chart. There’s no chance the team leaves him exposed in the upcoming rule-5 draft, so he’ll have at least three more years to prove he belongs.

b. n/a: forfeited for Adam LaRoche signing.

c. No/Inc: Right now our 3rd through 5th picks are looking iffy; 4th rounder Matthew Purke was paid like an upper first rounder and has been a massive disappointment. Right now he’s recovering from Tommy John and faces an uncertain future. 4th rounder Kylin Turnbull has gotten lit up in high-A this year, his second crack at the league. 5th rounder Matt Skole may be the most promising of the bunch; he crushed 27 homers in his first season of full-season ball only to miss all of 2013 because of a freak injury. Can Skole continue developing and make the majors on a full-time basis? Can Purke at this point?

d. Yes: With the call-up of 6th rounder Taylor Hill earlier this year, this category is met. Which is good because the rest of the 6th-10th rounders from this year are struggling. Two are already released/retired, one is MIA and the lone remaining active player (Brian Dupra) is struggling as a starter/swing-man in AA. But Hill is a huge win; a college senior draftee on minimal bonus rocketing through the minors and forcing his way onto the 25-man roster.

e. Yes/Inc: It is far too early to fully judge this category, but it is looking promising despite the fact that the team failed to sign SIX of its ten picks beween the 11th and 20th round. 11th rounder Caleb Ramsey is already in AA. 16th rounder Deion Williams is on the mound (not a SS as in the Draft Tracker) and is struggling in short-A. 18th rounder Nick Lee is struggling in Potomac this year but has shown a huge arm and seems like he’ll eventually convert to loogy (especially considering his undersized stature); I can see Lee making it far as a matchup lefty reliever with swing-and-miss stuff. The lone failure at this point is 12th rounder Blake Monar, sort of inexplicably released after a decent 2012 season in Short-A.

f. Yes: 30th round pick Bryan Harper earned his way to Harrisburg. 45th round college senior pick Richie Mirowski also made it to AA, where he wasn’t half bad last year, though at the moment he’s back in Potomac. And there’s three other players drafted in the 20th or higher who are active on Potomac’s roster this year and who may get moved up. Decent production out of the bottom of this draft so far.

2011: Projected Success: As discussed before, I believe the selection of Rendon was a “no-brainer” based on a unique set of circumstances that occured on draft day, but credit the management team for having the stones to pick him when other GMs didn’t. I’m sure the Mariners (especially) would like a re-do on that draft (they picked 2nd overall, got soft-tossing local product Danny Hultzen, who was sidelined last year with all sorts of shoulder issues and is no sure bet to ever make it back. They rolled the dice with Purke and so far seem to be losing, but Purke was himself a 1-1 talent at one point (remember, he had his $4M+ deal with Texas pulled thanks to MLB-stewardship at the time) and was probably worth the risk. I’d like to see Skole reach the majors in some capacity before declaring this draft a full success.

Note: from here onwards, everything is a projection and is based on scouting the stat lines. I’m going to sound negative where others sound positive and vice versa. Hey, its better than writing nothing.

a. Yes/inc: 1st rounder Lucas Giolito (so far) has shown himself to be at full speed post TJ surgery and is mostly in the top 10-15 of every professional scouting pundit’s list for best prospect in the entirety of the minors. He’s got a #1 starter ceiling, a huge frame and three plus pitches. He’s projecting to be everything you’d hope for from an upper first rounder.

b. No/inc: It is hard to squint at 2nd rounder Tony Renda at this point and project him as a future “MLB regular.” Sure he’s hitting .297 in Potomac, and sure his numbers at the plate have not varied much in his three pro seasons. Unfortunately he’s vastly undersized and he has no power in a time where pro middle infielders are expected to provide serious pop. Maybe he can forge a career like Jamey Carroll or like a Jose Altuve, but the odds are against him. I don’t mean to discount the guy because he’s 5’8″ but we all know there’s a significant bias in the industry towards undersized guys. Heck, a pitcher is considered “short” if he isn’t 6’2″ these days.

c. No/inc: So far the guys picked 3rd-5th are also struggling. 3rd rounder Brett Mooneyham‘s struggles are well documented here. 4th rounder Brandon Miller continues to show great power but has missed much of this season with a hamstring injury (he’s on rehab in the GCL as we speak). Lastly 5th rounder Spencer Keiboom suffered a blown UCL that basically cost him the whole 2013 season. He’s got great numbers in low-A this year but is two years too old for the league. Keiboom’s talents more centered on his defense than his bat, so he may still push forward as a future backup catcher. But until he does, this category falls in the “no” side.

d. Maybe/inc: The leading hope for some MLB success out of our 6th-10th round picks right now resides in one of two middle relievers: 7th round pick Robert Benincasa or 9th round pick Derek Self. You never know; one of these guys could turn into the next Aaron Barrett. 8th round SS Stephen Perez made the all-star team this year in Potomac and could feature as a future utility infielder. The team has already released its 6th round pick Hayden Jennings, and their 10th rounder (local Rockville product Craig Manual) was a college senior catcher who is backing up other catchers in the system for the time being). He may continue to hang around but unless he gets a starting gig he’s going to get replaced by someone newer.

e. Yes/inc: 17th rounder Blake Schwartz has already made it to AA, where he struggled and he now sits back in Potomac (where he was great last year, go figure). 11th rounder Brian Rauh got a spot-start in AA last year but has bounced in and out of the Potomac rotation this year. 16th rounder Ronald Pena is working his way off injury but faces a long road to move up thanks to a lack of swing-and-miss stuff. The team has already released four of its 11th-20th round picks; the remaining out-field players (12th rounder Carlos Lopez and 19th rounder Bryan Lippincott) both seem to face long odds as college senior draftees still residing in the low minors to even make it up to AA at this point. To be fair, Lopez missed most of 2013 with an unknown injury, so we’ll give him a slight pass. Lippincott sits in XST right now.

f. No/inc: 33rd rounder Mike McQuillan has hung around and currently serves as a utility guy/bench player for Potomac. A couple of relievers remain on squads: 29th rounder Leonard Hollins is hurt but is on a full-season squad, and 30th rounder Robert Orlan was with Hagerstown to start the season but is back in Auburn. The rest of the 20th round and up guys features carnage; eight college senior draftees already released to go along with 10 unsigned (mostly high schoolers) picks in the later rounds. One unsigned pick looks interesting; all-american freshman UNC player Skye Bolt may be a big-time 2015 draft pick. But otherwise, I’m predicting that we dont’ get even a AA player out of the last 20 rounds of this draft at this point.

2012: Projected Failure: Frankly, this is looking like it may be a one player draft. At this point, I don’t think you can look at *any* other player in this draft and project even a bench/fringe 25-man roster guy besides Giolito. Now ask yourself: if Giolito fulfills expectations and becomes an “ace,” a top 15-20 arm in the majors while the rest of this draft basically becomes high-A and AA filler, does that change your opinion of the draft success/failure?

a. n/a: No 2013 first rounder thanks to the supurfluous signing of Rafael Soriano. As noted at the time, the Nats missed out on players like Sean Manaea, Ryan Stanek or Ian Clarkin, all of whom were available at the time of their lost 1st rounder. Manaea in particular has flourished, rising up prospect list charts and sporting a healthy K/9 rate in high-A this year. I’d like to call this in and among itself a failure (given my reservations about paying for saves in general), but have to admit that Soriano has been pretty durn good this year.

b. No/inc: 2nd rounder Jake Johansen thus far has not lived up to advance billing in his first year in full-season ball. He’s averaging just 4.5 innings per outing and sports a 5.00 ERA and less than a K/inning. I can understand the difficult adjustment to pro ball, but I don’t get how his vaunted velocity and size combination aren’t resulting in more swing-and-miss. He’s given no indication that he can avoid what scouts have been saying all along (that he’s destined for the bullpen), he’s way too wild and way too hittable.

c. Yes/inc: the Nats collection of 3rd rounder Drew Ward, 4th rounder Nick Pivetta and now especially 5th rounder Austin Voth are making this management team look very smart. All Voth has done since forcing his promotion to High-A is give up 10 hits and ONE earned run in 33 innings over five starts. That’s just ridiculous. And he’s doing it while maintaining a 36/5 K/BB ratio. There’s zero reason for him to still be in Potomac at this point. I don’t know what Voth’s ceiling is, but its getting pushed.

d. No/inc: Thanks to the new CBA’s rules, most 6th-10th rounders are throw-away/college senior picks these days. So it’ll be awfully hard to depend on one of them turning into a 25-man roster guy. The best bet out of this draft will be having either 6th rounder Cody Gunter or 7th rounder James Yezzo eventually matriculating to the majors. The other guys in this category were 15k bonus college seniors, one of whom (9th rounder Jake Joyce has *already* been released). Do we think either Gunter or Yezzo projects as a major leaguer? Not right now: Gunter’s struggling in short-A for the 2nd year in a row and Yezzo is an undersized 1B showing little power.

e. Maybe/inc: Right now the pickings for the guys taken 11th-20th look pretty slim too. Three were senior signs who have already been released and we failed to sign our 16th round pick Willie Allen (though can’t fault the Nats for that: doing research on him for last year’s draft review showed all sorts of inconsistencies with him, including whether he’s even still playing baseball in college). But 11th rounder John Simms is looking like a great find; he’s already in the AA rotation and holding his own (though you could argue it was out of need, not performance). Among those left, 10th rounder Brandon Middleton and 15th rounder Isaac Ballou are starting and playing well in Hagerstown, 12th rounder Andrew Cooper is strugging in low-A, 13th rounder John Costa has yet to debut for the team thanks to TJ surgery, and 17th rounder Geoffrey Perrott was a senior catcher who got a grand total of 13 at-bats in 2013 and has remained in XST so far thisyear, perhaps to serve as a bullpen catcher for others remaining in Viera and perhaps because he was hurt most of last year and may still be recovering. If Simms continues to rise and we get a couple more longer-lasting prospects out of this crew, we’ll convert this to a success.

f. Maybe/Inc: The Nats picked seven college seniors in the 21st round or above and so far they’re all with Hagerstown. Middle infielders Cody Dent (22nd rounder) and Willie Medina (31st rounder) both hit in the .220s last year, are hitting in the .220s (or worse) this year, and seem like they may not last the season. However the pitchers in this bunch are looking better and better. 28th rounder Joey Webb has a 2.53 ERA, 30th rounder Ryan Ullmann has as 3.10 ERA and got a high-A up-and-back call-up, and 34th rounder Jake Walsh dominated Low-A and earned a call-up to Potomac. Only 29th rounder Michael Sylvestri seems to be in trouble among these senior signs; after struggling in Short-A last year, he gave up a ton of runs in 6 mid-relief outings and is currently in re-assignment purgatory. What of the non senior-signs? 24th round pick Matthew Derosier is struggling in short-A and 23rd round outfielder Garrett Gordon seems like he’s a bench player in Auburn. But a revelation may be 25th round prep draft pick Travis Ott. He holds a 2.10 ERA through 6 starts in Auburn despite being quite young for the league. So, the trend seems good that we’ll get value out of the bottom part of this draft.

2013: Projected Failure: Sorry to say; no first rounder, a middle reliever out of your 2nd rounder, perhaps a 5th starter out of the 3-5 rounds, and some org filler from the bottom of the draft? How many players from this draft do you realistically project to make the majors?

a. Maybe/inc: 1st rounder Erick Fedde may project as a MLB rotation guy, but he’s not projecting as an ace level arm. So if he comes back from surgery 100%, if he keeps moving up the chain, if he makes the majors and if he has an impact we’ll give this a yes. Lots of ifs.

b. n/a: we failed to sign our 2nd rounder Andrew Suarez.

c. Maybe/inc: The hopes here fall on 3rd rounder Jakson Reetz and 4th rounder Robbie Dickey, since our 5th rounder was a senior lefty out of non-baseball powerhouse Duke. How do we dream on Reetz and Dickey? Maybe Reetz turns into our next Derek Norris while Dickey turns into the next Austin Voth. Lets hope so, because both so far have had rather inauspicious starts in the GCL (Reetz batting .220 and Dickey posting an ERA in the 12s). To be fair Reetz is a kid and Dickey isn’t much older, so we have a long way to go before passing true judgement.

d. No/inc: We failed to sign the 8th round pick Austin Byler (and from reading the tea leaves, it didn’t seem like we were ever even close). Our 7th, 8th and 10th round picks were low-bonus college seniors with little hope of advancing. So this category falls squarely on the shoulders of 6th rounder Austin Williams, who looks ok so far in Short-A.

e. Far too Early: most of these guys who did sign are 15 games into short seasons.

f. Far too Early: most of these guys who did sign are 15 games into short seasons.

2014: Not promising: An injured first rounder, no 2nd rounder, really just a handful of non senior-signs elsewhere in the draft. As I opined in the previous post discussion, I just don’t like the looks of this class.

So. 5200 words later, I think I actually like my guidelines. I think though that the new CBA forces teams into making a bunch of “throw-away” picks in the 6th-10th rounds, so my criteria needs to be adjusted downward for that category in the last few years. Otherwise I think it holds.

What say you?

Editor’s Post-posting thoughts. Based on the analysis above, the franchise has 5 successes and 5 failures (or projected failures) in ten drafts. After up and down drafts the first four years, we had three straight successes in 2009-2011, but now I feel like we’ve had three successive failures from 2012 onwards. Here’s a sobering thought about those successes and failures: lets talk about bonus money spent.

In the 5 drafts I call successes, the team spent (chronologically): $3,990,500, $7,619,300, $18,806,000, $11,413,200 and $11,325,000 in bonus money.

Era 1 may be just the way it used to go; sometimes you’d get wins in the draft, other times you’d strike out. Era 2 was the glory years of Nats drafting, though the cynic may point out that picking three consensus 1-1 talents and spending 8 figures in bonus money wasn’t that hard. Era 3 is more troubling: why has this management team not done better in the CBA/limited bonus era?

We’re a month into the minor league full-seasons and the rotations are already mostly established (with D/L trips and slight movement as noted here). So lets do a little navel gazing and take a look at my predictions versus the actuals before we lose too much identity with the makeup of these four full-season pitching staffs from opening day.

As always, Luke Erickson and nationalsprospects.com, the Nats Big Board and the tireless work by “SpringfieldFan” is much appreciated here.

MLB Discussion: A late spring injury to Doug Fister obsoleted the 5th starter competition, giving both Tanner Roark and Taylor Jordan spots (for now; Roark has “won” the 5th spot thanks to a better April now that Fister is ready to come back). The biggest news during spring training was the Ross Detwiler “demotion” to the bullpen, but the Aaron Barrett victory over the likes of Christian Garcia and Ryan Mattheus was also notable. Injuries to Ross Ohlendorf and Erik Davis cleared out bullpen competition, and an early spring training chest injury to Mattheus also made it difficult for him to break camp with the big league club.

Nothing new here: we’ve talked this to death already Lets move onto the four full-season minor league squads.

Technically I got 2/5ths of the AAA rotation right to start the year: Rosenbaum and a MLFA in the form of Omar Poveda (technically an acquisition but still…). Karns was traded to obtain our (now) starting catcher Jose Lobaton. Jordan of course started the year in the majors, but I think he’ll end up back here for a good portion of the season. Young was granted his release and immediately signed in Seattle to fill one of their rotation spots. The team resigned its own MLFA in Ryan Tatusko to return and he seems set to be in the rotation for now, but he’s more of a swing-man/org arm and he likely makes way for a starter when needed. The big surprise is the unexpected promotion of Taylor Hill; he featured in AA but I thought he’d start out there. Brad Meyers stays in the organization but is “missing” for the time being: he may be headed for the D/L but as of this writing has no assignment.

In the month since opening day, we’ve seen both Mike Gonzalez and Aaron Laffey make their way to Syracuse to cover for the subsequently injured Rosenbaum and promoted MLB-bullpen-covering reliever of the day (Cedeno, Treinen, Barrett and Mattheus have all already spent time on the shuttle between Washington and Syracuse).

In the bullpen; our prediction looks decently correct; 6 of the 8 Syracuse opening day members were called. The outliers: MLFA signings Warner Madrigal and Josh Roenicke. Predicted members Erik Davis instead sits on the mlb 60-day D/L, and Alfaro is in the AA squad. Pat Lehman sits on the AA D/L for now.

AAA “Star Power” summary: So, as has become typical AAA isn’t so much about finishing off prospects as it is about holding spare parts. In the rotation we had zero 40-man roster players at this point, and really just Blake Treinen features as a potential up-and-comer (with possible future apologies to Taylor Hill of course …). The bullpen has just three 40-man roster arms (a loogy in Xavier Cedeno, and two injury reclamation projects in Christian Garcia and Ryan Mattheus). Eventually we should see some culling of this roster when the team needs to find spots for Gonzalez and Laffey in particular. Syracuse fans may not be getting the best pitching staff out there to cheer on.

We got some of the rotation correct; A.J. Cole and Blake Schwartz. We technically got Hill and Treinen correct … just under-valued where the organization would put them. And lastly Sammy Solis would be in this group had he not suffered a late-spring back injury; for the time being he’s in XST but is on the “missing” list here. I had Rob Gilliam as the AA swing man anyway; he would likely make way for Solis once he comes back. The two additional names are Matthew Purke (who surprisingly to me starts the year in AA) and newly acquired Felipe Rivero.

We got most of the bullpen right: 5 of 8 predicted. The outliers: Ryan Perry remains in the organization but sits on the D/L; personally I thought he may get released. Gabriel Alfaro was a MLFA who slots into the bullpen, as was Zach Jackson (who should have been in AAA to begin with and has already been promoted). Benincasa starts in high-A again and Gilliam is pushed into the rotation. Recent acquisition KPerez remain missing, along with several other middle relief arms. Spann started the year two levels lower than I thought he should have in Low-A but currently sits in Potomac.

A couple of long-serving names are now out of the organization; I was surprised to see Cameron Selik in particular being released; I always liked him for some reason. Its tough being a middle relief RHP with so many of them getting drafted year after year.

AA Star Power summary: A few very important names to the organization sit in AA: top pitching prospect A.J. Cole sits here and will be looking to push for a AAA promotion. Sammy Solis had rumblings of being turned into a Loogy in Spring Training; now he just needs to get healthy. Matthew Purke’s destiny remains at a cross-roads thanks to a horrible start to his 2014 AA campaign. And newly acquired/40-man member Felipe Rivero sits here, hoping to show as a decent bounty for the Nathan Karns trade. These three guys all sit on the Nats fast-depleting 40-man roster … and they represent 33% of ALL the 40-man rostered players in the Eastern League.

I thought the team would start Purke in high-A again; instead he is struggling in AA. I thought Dixon Anderson was old enough to merit the move to high-A; instead he still sits in Hagerstown repeating the level. And Kyle Turnbull remains on the low-A D/L for now. Otherwise the High-A rotation prediction looks pretty good: we hit on Mooneyham and Encarnacion, we hit on RPena and Dickson and Bacus as swingmen or starters (they all now sit in those roles in some capacity or another thanks to injuries).

The bullpen predictions are all over the place; both Wort and Holt were released, not pushed higher. Fischer remains missing. Benincasa is lower than I thought he’d be. Dupra and Rauh (who I thought were in jeopardy of getting cut) not only have kept their spots but have been pushing for promotion, which is great to see. It does go to show that its kind of difficult to do these predictions the lower you go.

High-A Star Power summary: Honestly there’s not a ton of big-time prospect names on the High-A staff. Mooneyham was a high draft pick but has more or less struggled thus far in his pro career. Encarnacion could be an up-and-comer in an organization that has struggled to develop its DSL graduate talent lately. Otherwise the Potomac staff is filled with mid- to late-round college draft arms, older for the level at this point, and likely playing for their careers this year thanks to the higher-end talent sitting in the Hagerstown rotation right now (read further).

The big three starters in Hagerstown were easily predicted (Giolito, Johansen and Voth). Lee and Anderson switched places in my predictions (both starters, wrong teams) and Orlan is stuck in XST. Pivetta was pushed to the rotation after pitching in relief last year. And then a slew of the Hagerstown arms are participating in a “dual starter” system where by the starters generally have been going 5 and the relievers/spot starters going the other 4 each night. So the team is getting lots of looks at these pitchers on an extended basis.

This system means there’s really not a “bullpen” being developed in Low-A, which is just as well; I’d rather have 8-10 starter candidates to choose from for higher levels than just 4-5 with guys already being pushed to being short-inning relievers in Low-A.

Unfortunately, we see that a slew of guys have already been cut here who appeared on last year’s rosters. And, there’s a ton more players currently sitting in XST waiting to compete with June 2014 draft picks in the short-season squads. Lots of churn here.

Low-A Star Power summary: look no further than the big three starters: they represent 1st, 2nd and 5th round draft picks. Throw in Pivetta (a 4th rounder) and the team has a ton of vested interest in this rotation.

Phew; that’s a lot of players. I can’t wait to see how the staffs work out this year. I don’t expect much in the way of commenting on this post; it was one of those drafts sitting in my admin screen that I thought i’d finish off and publish to get it out of the way

Austin Voth was great last year and has been good this year. Photo via mlbdirt

We’re a month into the minor league season and nearly five turns through each minor league system rotation, so lets take a look to see how our starters are doing.

As with the major league rotation review, I’ve assigned grade letters to roughly judge each start done by our minor league staff, and then i’ve tacked on their overall stats for context. Note that I generally give grades to those that get the starts in games, as well as those who pitch “starter length” outings. You’ll see this much more frequently in the low-A section, where Hagerstown clearly has a “two-starter” system going for many of its guys; one guy will throw 5 innings, then the next guy throws 4. So nearly the entire Hagerstown roster is getting “starter grades” right now. I should also caveat that this analysis is “scouting the box score” analysis; I’ve not had a chance to see any of these guys in person, so I can’t comment on the luck factor involved with anyone (stats versus ability) other than inference analysis between ERA and FIP.

For each team I’ll list the current rotation as best as I can make it, then have a second section where we list the guys with spot-starts or who were in the rotation but are no longer (D/L trips, promoted, demoted, etc). Then we’ll discuss, and then list those guys who are pushing for promotions and those guys who are in jeopardy of getting demoted (or, worse, released).

(Note: I wouldn’t be able to do this data tracking or this post without the great daily work by Luke Erickson at www.nationalsprospects.com.) All stats here are as of 5/2/14, which means I grabbed one May start’s worth of stats for a couple of guys here and there.

AAA/Syracuse:

Pitcher

Start Trend Line

W/L

ERA

Whip

FIP

K/BB Ratio

# of innings

Apps/Starts

Roenicke

A (3ip),F,B

0-2

5.84

1.54

4.10

7/7

12

5/3

Tatusko

A/short,B-,B+,A,B

1-3

2.36

0.83

3.87

15/7

26.2

5/5

Treinen

A-> upandback,C/short,B+

0-0

0.87

1.16

3.58

8/5

10.1

3/3

Hill

A,A+,C,A,C

3-1

2.35

0.91

3.68

29/4

30.2

5/5

Poveda

F,F,A,F

1-3

9.82

2.07

5.13

12/10

18.1

4/4

Laffey

A (took Treinen’s spot),A+,D+

2-0

1.80

0.67

1.92

14/2

15

3/1

Rosenbaum

D,A,C-,D/inc (injury)->D/L

1-1

4.50

1.35

4.18

9/5

20

4/4

Rotation Discussion:

A month in and the Syracuse Chiefs are mired in last place (though to be fair, only 3 games separate the entire division). Opening day starter Danny Rosenbaum is already on the D/L with a possible torn UCL, possibly the latest in an epidemic of Tommy John surgeries throughout baseball (there’s been at least 14 MLB pitchers to go under the knife for this already in 2014 and quite a few more minor leaguers; I have a draft post on this topic coming). His replacement in the rotation is journeyman and Ian Desmond-relative Josh Roenicke, who has struggled in his spot-start duties. However, Roenicke isn’t the least effective starter in AAA; that distinction goes to late spring training acquisition Omar Poveda, who has gotten pretty well battered so far in his four starts. One of these two guys likely is making way for recently demoted Taylor Jordan (well, assuming Jordan even makes it to AAA anytime soon; Doug Fister‘s return is complicated by the Nats needing another starter in-between; Jordan likely is sitting in AAA limbo until tuesday 5/6, then will settle into the AAA rotation).

Meanwhile, we’re seeing excellent springs so far out of Ryan Tatusko, Blake Treinen (albeit in a SSS thanks to his being bounced up and down out of the Nats bullpen), Aaron Laffey and especially Taylor Hill. Hill’s excellent 29/4 K/BB ratio stands out, as well as his sub 1.00 whip so far in 5 starts. I think its fair to say that nobody expected him to have rocketed up the system like he has, given the fact that he was a college senior draftee with limited bonus and limited leverage. I think its also worth noting Tatusko’s production in a swing-man role; quite similarly to his trade-mate Tanner Roark, he continues to produce at an advanced/MLFA age … could he be another “found gold” pitcher in our upper farm system?

We should also note that we have yet to see Brad Meyers, who remains on the D/L and has only thrown about 6 professional innings since 2011.

Bullpen Notables

The Syracuse bullpen has seen plenty of traffic to and from the majors: Aaron Barrett started in the majors and has seen time in Syracuse. Ryan Mattheus and Xavier Cedeno have already both been up and back. Nobody in the pen has much more than about 10 innings pitched, so we won’t make too many rash judgements. So far Christian Garcia looks decent; his 12/2 K/BB ratio in 10 innings is promising but he currently sits on the D/L with an unspecified injury. Meanwhile Daniel Stange has struggled with his control; he has 10 walks in 12 innings. We’ll talk more about bullpen guys deeper into the season.

Most Deserving of a promotion: Hill and perhaps Laffey, both of whom are pitching dominantly right now. But neither are 40-man guys, and that (especially for Laffey) hurts him. Laffey as a starter in AAA has been great, but he might be more useful as a lefty-match up guy. Cedeno has been getting the MLB-bullpen covering call-ups but if Laffey was on the 40-man instead, it probably would have been him instead.

Most in Jeopardy of a demotion/release: Poveda for sure; his cash-only acquisition isn’t looking promising considering that a rotation spot is needed soon for Jordan. Roenicke needs a couple of good outings to get his numbers up; with only 12 innings its hard to pass too harsh a judgement. But, with very little push from the current AA rotation, its hard to see a reason why the organization needs to make a move anytime soon (see the next section for more).

AA/Harrisburg:

Pitcher

Start Trend Line

W/L

ERA

Whip

FIP

K/BB Ratio

# of innings

Apps/Starts

Schwartz

F,F,B+,F,D+

0-4

6.08

1.99

5.1

15/10

23.2

5/5

Rivero

D-,B,B-,F,B+

1-4

5.06

1.69

4.85

13/9

21.1

5/5

Gilliam

F,B-,D,A

0-0

5.09

1.36

6.05

13/9

17.2

5/4

Purke

F,D,F,F

0-5

9.30

2.11

6.55

14/13

20.1

5/5

Cole

B-,A,D,F

2-1

3.63

1.57

2.82

16/4

22.1

5/5

Dupra

B+

1-0

0.00

0.9

4.35

3/3

3.1

1/0

Perry

F -> d/l

0-0

5.63

1.5

3.07

6/3

8

5/0

Jackson

A -> promoted

0-0

0.00

0.52

2.01

7/0

7.2

5/0

Bates

B

0-0

5.68

1.66

2.97

12.2

6/0

Rotation Discussion:

Well, there’s not much joy in Harrisburg in terms of the rotation right now. The team is already 7.5 games out of first and is in dead last in the Eastern League. Four of the five starters in Harrisburg are, well, just awful right now. I should note that the stats above do include one extra start for Matthew Purke; it didn’t help his cause. Newly acquired Felipe Rivero has not acclimated well to Harrisburg, to say the least. Blake Schwartz has not adjusted well to the jump to AA after his excellent season in Potomac last year. The one bright spot seems to be A.J. Cole by ERA/FIP, but he’s still putting an awful lot of people on base (1.57 whip).

Sammy Solis remains on the AA D/L, along with a handful of other long-serving names in this organization (Paul Demny, Rafael Martin and Pat Lehman).

Bullpen Notables

Zach Jackson already earned his promotion via 7 scoreless innings, though to be fair he really should have been in AAA to start (he’s a veteran minor leaguer and has been pitching at the AAA level for nearly a decade). Matt Grace is faring well thus far, as is Richie Mirowski, while Gabriel Alfaro needs to get his control under control (he’s got 9 walks in 11 1/3 innings).

Most Deserving of a promotion: none of these guys are pushing for a promotion, now that Jackson is back in AAA where he belongs.

Most in Jeopardy of a demotion/release: You have to think that Purke may be in jeopardy of being coverted to relief at this point. Alfaro was a MLFA signing out of the Mexican league and may not be long for the organization if he keeps pitching this badly. Gilliam was a throw-in to the Gio Gonzalez trade and is old for the level; he may get pushed out if someone from Potomac makes a case for promotion (which, thankfully for him, has yet to be the case; read on).

High-A/Potomac

Pitcher

Start Trend Line

W/L

ERA

Whip

FIP

K/BB Ratio

# of innings

Apps/Starts

Rauh

B-,F-,C+,C-

1-1

4.43

1.57

4

15/7

20.1

5/4

Rpena

F,D,F/inc,A-,A-

2-0

6.43

1.48

5.71

5/8

21

5/5

Mooneyham

F,C-,A-,D/short,B-

2-1

3.32

1.63

6.71

7/19

19

5/4

Bacus

A+,A+,A (into rotation for Encarnacion)

1-1

2.08

0.69

4.7

15/3

17.1

6/0

Simms

(newly promoted; no Apr starts)

Dickson

B+,F,B+,A

0-2

6.23

1.38

5.37

21/7

21.3

7/0

Encarnacion

C+,B,F,D- ->d/l

1-2

4.00

1.94

5.88

14/12

18

4/4

Lee

F-,F-,D,A -> d/l

0-2

10.05

1.74

2.33

23/8

14.1

5/4

Fister

B (rehab)

0-0

0.00

1.5

2.16

3/0

4

1/1

Dupra

A+,B+,A,A-> promoted

3-0

0.53

0.71

1.31

23/1

17

5/0

Rotation Discussion:

Potomac is sitting in 1st place easily with the rest of its division struggling so far. But Its hard to see how they’re doing it with a rotation putting up numbers like this. The only guy getting starts for Potomac in April with a respectable/impressive FIP was Nick Lee, and he’s on the D/L. But even Lee’s numbers look completely weird: he had a 10 (ten!) ERA in his 14 innings, but an astounding 23 ks in 14 innings. His numbers are completely spiked by two successive awful outings and he currently sits on the D/L with an unspecified but hopefully short-term injury. Dakota Bacus earned his way into the rotation with a series of excellent long-relief outings; he replaces the also-injured opening day rotation starter Pedro Encarnacion, who himself struggled with his control (12 walks in 18 innings) before hitting the D/L. Otherwise there’s not much notable in the Potomac rotation to talk about: Brett Mooneyham‘s advanced numbers show just how bad he’s really pitched; he currently has a 7/19 K/BB ratio in 19 innings. He has more than twice the number of walks as he has strikeouts! That’s not a recipe for success long-term.

Kylin Turnbull remains on the Hagerstown D/L, continuing to be a complete 2011 draft-day disappointment.

Bullpen Notables

The best reliever in Potomac thus far this season has already been bumped up; Brian Dupra posted a nifty 23/1 K/BB ratio and earned his way to AA. Robert Benincasa already has 5 saves with good numbers. Derek Self has great numbers and has given up just three base-runners in 10 innings thus far. So the Nats are getting some great relief. Gilberto Mendez hasn’t walked a guy yet and is one of the youngest guys in the league, so he’s clearly holding his own after posting a 0.91 ERA in low-A last year.

Most Deserving of a promotion: Outside of Dupra, its hard to pinpoint someone that really is pushing for a promotion out of this squad right now. Bacus is pitching well but he’s just got a month of high-A experience; lets see how he does for a half season. I could see the late-inning crew of Self, Benincasa and Bryan Harper possibly getting moved up sooner than later. But none of the starters really are making a case for promotion right now.

Most in Jeopardy of a demotion/release: Clearly for me the guy in trouble is Mooneyham; you just can’t be walking that many guys and have as little swing-and-miss capabilities to counter-balance your wildness. Before his injury, Encarnacion was struggling with his command too; I can see him back in low-A. Lastly Ronald Pena just is not fooling anybody right now; he’s got just 5 Ks in 20 innings and would be in more jeopardy if there weren’t other candidates ahead of him to replace at this point.

Low-A/Hagerstown

Pitcher

Start Trend Line

W/L

ERA

Whip

FIP

K/BB Ratio

# of innings

Apps/Starts

Pivetta

A,A-,F,F,B+

3-2

4.57

1.48

4.36

13/10

21.2

5/5

Voth

A,D,A-,D/short

0-2

2.91

1.38

2.7

26/10

21.1

5/5

Giolito

D-,A+,A,C-,C-

1-0

2.95

1.22

3.62

24/11

21.1

5/5

Anderson

A,A+,F,D-

3-0

6.33

1.36

4.98

13/6

21.1

5/3

Johansen

B,B+,F,C-

2-0

5.21

1.53

3.84

17/11

19

4/4

Suero

D,A,B,A

3-0

1.20

0.88

3.53

13/2

21.2

5/0

Cooper

B,A+,D

2-0

2.81

1.31

2.57

11/1

16

5/0

Jthomas

A+,A-

1-2

2.53

1.22

4.51

4/5

10.2

5/0

Ullmann

B+

0-0

0.00

0.8

2.67

9/2

10

4/0

Hollins

A-

2-0

4.35

1.74

3.86

9/7

10.1

8/0

Silvestre

B+,inc (inj)->d/l

0-0

3.00

1.33

2.24

7/2

6

2/2

Simms

A,A,A,A+->promoted

0-0

0.98

0.82

2.05

20/2

18.1

5/0

Spann

B+,A-,B+,B+->promoted

2-0

1.20

1.13

2.77

15/4

15

4/0

Rotation Discussion:

Hagerstown is taking the South Atlantic league by storm, leading its division by 5.5 games already. And they’re getting some great pitching. The team clearly seems to be doing “combo starts” with some of its guys: that’s why someone like Wander Suero has as many IP as the 5 guys in the “rotation.” So, when it comes to judging starts nearly the entire staff in Hagerstown has “start length” outings to assign grades to. I like what I see out of Austin Voth so far, and Lucas Giolito is clearly holding his own in full-season ball (both these guys feature more than a K/inning, which is great to see especially out of the undersized Voth). Meanwhile we’re seeing some worrying wildness out of Jake Johansen, which will not quell the “he’s too big to be a starter so he’s destined for the bullpen” crowd.

Bullpen Notables

John Simms (11th rounder in 2012) and Matthew Spann (booty for the team’s sticking its nose into the David DeJesus waiver situation last year) have both already forced promotions thanks to excellent results. Otherwise there really isn’t much in the way of a traditional “bullpen” in Hagerstown to talk about.

Most Deserving of a promotion: I’d say Voth and Jake Walsh, who older guys who are mowing guys down in Low-A and may need to be challenged by better/older hitters.

Most in Jeopardy of a demotion: One of the older guys on this staff (Dixon Anderson) isn’t putting up the numbers he needs to be putting up as a college senior 2011 draftee in low-A. Youngster Nicholas Pivetta is also struggling with the jump to full-season ball out of JuCo and may be dumped back to XST at some point. But it should also be said that we’re kind of squinting for bad performances out of the Low-A squad; both these guys’ numbers are better than practically anyone in AA right now.

Top Prospect Review

From a trending perspective for our top 10 prospect arms (in rough order of their typical rankings on prospect lists):

Giolito is succeeding so far, though isn’t as dominant yet to be pushing for a promotion to High-A

Cole is holding his own and is the best AA starter right now, but again isn’t entirely pushing for a AAA promotion just quite yet.

Solis has yet to appear thanks to a late spring training injury.

Rivero has really struggled since his arrival

Johansen has shown some wildness and not as much swing-and-miss stuff as he did in short-season ball.

Purke has been awful and it may be time to move him to the Pen.

Voth has been excellent and is probably the closest to a promotion.

Barrett and Treinien have both earned promotions to provide MLB cover, and when in AAA have been effective

Jefry Rodriguez is in XST and didn’t make a full-season team.

Conclusions:

So far, I must say i’m a bit disappointed in the performance of the AA squad, but its great to see the promise of the Low-A squad. I’m slightly worried about how our closer-to-the-majors top prospect arms are looking; lets re-visit in a month and see how it looks.

Discussion: the 5th starter competition could shake out so many different ways, that it almost is not worth predicting. I can see any of the following scenarios playing out:

Detwiler gets one last shot at the 5th starter as the incumbent, pushing Jordan to AAA and Ohlendorf/Roark to the bullpen (my current prediction).

Jordan wins the 5th starter, pushing Detwiler to the bullpen as a power lefty by virtue of his lack of options. This would push (likely) Roark to AAA.

Roark wins the 5th starter, continuing his blistering sub 2.00 ERA pace from September, pushing Detwiler to the bullpen and Jordan to AAA.

Less likely, Karns wins the 5th spot, which pushes Detwiler to the bullpen and Roark & Jordan to AAA.

Even more less likely, Ohlendorf wins the spot, which pushes Detwiler to the bullpen but lets Roark stay as the long man/spot-starter.

Mike Rizzo shocks us again with another starter acquisition; Detwiler goes to the bullpen, Ohlendorf stays as long man, and Roark & Jordan are in AAA.

Why am I predicting Detwiler will win the rotation spot? Partly because of options, but partly because I’ve sort of come back around on him after looking more closely at his 2013 season. He had a decent to good 2012; he posted a 118 ERA+ and even if his advanced FIP/SIERA didn’t indicate he was quite that good, he was still more than a servicable 5th starter. Then in his first seven 2013 starts he was also very good (he had a 2.53 ERA in his first 7 starts and 42 2/3 innings … he got hurt in his 8th start). The rest of his season was a mess, with him fighting injury and ballooning his seasonal ERA from 2.53 to more than 4.00 in five more starts. If he comes back healthy to start 2014, why wouldn’t we expect more of the same performance that he had at the start of 2013? For these two reasons, I think Detwiler breaks camp as the 5th starter. Now …. I have zero confidence that he’ll remain healthy enough to keep his spot in the rotation, but that’s a problem for another day. And a problem for which this team has plenty of coverage.

Another scenario that could affect this predition: Rizzo acquires yet another lefty reliever (latest rumors were about Scott Downs before he signed elsewhere, but I’m sure a trade could be arranged), which complicates any of these predictions because it means one less spot for either Ohlendorf or Roark. For a team that seems so obsessed with left-handed relievers, we sure have let a bunch of them go in recent years (Duke, Abad, Krol this year, Gorzelanny, Lannan, Burnett and Gonzalez last year). Maybe we should just hang on to one or two of these guys? I will say this: I do NOT believe that the Nats will choose Xavier Cedeno and his 6 2013 MLB innings for the Nats over Roark just because he’s left handed at this point.

Personally, I think Roark and Ohlendorf pitched like big leagers last year and deserve to stay in the majors until they prove otherwise. Ohlendorf’s recent $1.25M deal seems to indicate he’s more likely to stick than Roark, but perhaps the long-man/spot starter competition is open as well. This pushes previous stalwards in the bullpen (specifically Ryan Mattheus ) to AAA. I will say this though: if you expect to win, you have to go north with your 25 best guys no matter how much they make or their option status. And at the end of last year, that undoubtedly included Tanner Roark. So thats why I’m going with Roark in the pen to start the season.

One other wrinkle; does Rizzo trade one of Storen or Clippard to Chicago, who desperately needs a closer? This seems less likely, especially for a team that has World Series aspirations, but the truth is this team is paying a LOT of money into its bullpen ($25M and counting), has three closer-quality guys, and potentially a log jam of righties (see the AAA bullpen prediction for more). I see this as less likely unless Chicago sends back pieces that we really need, but rumors get started because GMs are talking, so maybe this still happens. But if a guy like that is traded, then that re-opens a slot for the deposed Mattheus or possibly the newly healthy an electric Garcia. I think these are lesser possibilities and both those guys are pushed to AAA to begin the season.

I’m sure this section garners plenty of discussion; have at it in the comments

So, the projected AAA rotation has one hold over in Rosenbaum, two “promotions” in Jordan and Karns, and then a whole bunch of question marks. Is Chris Young healthy enough to pitch this year? Is Brad Meyers? Right now i’ve got Meyers as a release candidate, figuring that he hasn’t been healthy in two years and may be finished. I have to think that the team will give a couple of lower-level free agents minor league contracts to try to pitch their way back into the league, much as they have done with the likes of Zach Duke, Ross Ohlendorf and Young in the last couple of off-seasons. There’s plenty of guys out there who may make sense; a quick glance at the current list of free agents offers intriguing names (think of someone like a Joe Saunders or a Barry Zito or an Aaron Harang; do you think these guys are getting guaranteed contracts for 2014?). I’m predicting that at least one or two of these types of guys get MLFA deals and end up in the AAA rotation, though I suppose at least one guy i’m projecting from the AA rotation could start in AAA.

The AAA bullpen has a couple of MLB-quality arms in Ryan Mattheus and Christian Garcia who we know can contribute at the MLB level but who end up here because of a numbers game at the big club. The AAA closer likely is Aaron Barrett, newly added to the 40-man and looking to make his mark. Erik Davis is here, who I kind of soured on last season but his numbers in small MLB samples were good and I think he can contribute in a Craig Stammen sort of way going forward. We have a couple of hold-over loogies in Xavier Cedeno and Tyler Robertson, the latter of which successfully passed through waivers and was outrighted to Syracuse last month. We already have three off-season MLFA signings (Gabriel Alfaro, Daniel Stange, Manny Delcarmen) who all project as righty middle relievers, making it seemingly less likely that the team will retain some of its own MLFAs (the likes of Ryan Tatusko and Jeff Mandel being longer serving Nats minor leaguers who pitched decently in 2013).

But as you can see there’s more candidates here than there is room on the Syracuse roster (10 for 7 spots, and that’s assuming that Pat Lehman doesn’t make the cut either). There will be injuries and D/L stints among these guys, but there may also be some releases next March.

Still, a AAA rotation led by Jordan and Karns (and possibly Ohlendorf and/or Roark if another move is made at the MLB level) leaves Syracuse with a pretty good staff to start the season. And I like the fact that we have one reasonably accomplished MLB starter (Jordan) waiting in the wings to go along with a guy who might get there soon (Karns), to go with potentially a couple other former major league guys who are working their way back.

We’ll see this trend again and again; despite the fact that the likes of A.J. Cole and Taylor Hill reached AA last year, the organization seems to like seeing these guys “beat the level” a second season in a row before moving guys up. And so I see these guys in AA again. Sammy Solis here is no surprise; he’s nearly 26 and has been mentioned as a MLB bullpen candidate already. Meanwhile for the time being i’ve got Blake Treinen here, repeating the level, but can also see him moving up to AAA. His numbers were good but not *that* good last year, and I left him in AA assuming that the team will try out some re-treads in the AAA rotation. Lastly Blake Schwartz gets a deserved promotion after leading Potomac in IP, wins and starts last year.

In the bullpen I think Robert Benincasa is your closer to start, with Richie Mirowski and Neil Holland continuing to put up dominating late-innings relief. All three guys should be pushing for promotions to AAA. We’re a little light on lefties here admittedly. A couple of injury-prone guys in Ryan Perry and Cameron Selik are listed as release candidates in the face of a number of guys meriting placement here. Paul Demny and Rafael Martin have been around forever and may also be release candidates at this point, but they also could (at least in Demny’s case) convert to relief and try to rekindle their careers. Lastly, there’s newly acquired Matthew Spann, the bounty for the Nats gambit on David Dejesus near the end of last season. He’s a lefty who looks like he could start but i’ve got him in the bullpen for now.

I don’t think there’s too many surprises in this rotation: Matthew Purke leads the line and should push for a promotion mid-season. If he doesn’t dominate High-A at this point it may be time to think about moving him to the pen. The same can be said about Brett Mooneyham and especially Kylin Turnbull, two guys who (by now) should have accomplished this level. Otherwise the rest of this projected rotation are three guys who succeeded in Low-A in 2013: Dixon Anderson, Pedro Encarnacion and Dakoda Bacus.

In the bullpen, at this point i’m not sure who the closer candidates are to start the season. Perhaps Greg Holt starts in the role. Perhaps low-A phenom Gilberto Mendez gets a shot at closing. Both Holt and Rob Wort may belong in AA at this point; Wort began 2013 there but there’s a lot of relievers in that AA section who would have to get hurt/be released to make room for these two guys right now. There’s a couple of decent swingmen candidates here in Ronald Pena and Ian Dickson both started for long stretches in Hagerstown and could be useful guys in Potomac. There’s a lot of names in the mix here for this bullpen; from here on down there could be plenty of releases come the end of spring.

I like this rotation, a lot. Two of our best prospects, a third guy in Austin Voth who impressed last year, a guy in Nick Lee who probably deserves a high-A rotation spot and then Auburn’s staff leader in Robert Orlan. Jake Johansen may find himself needing a promotion quickly, if he’s all that he’s cracked up to be.

The bullpen is going to be tough; basically every college aged short-season guy who pitched well in 2013 is named in this bullpen competition. There’s a couple of interesting DSL graduates in Wander Suero and Phillips Valdez, some big arms in Ryan Ullmann and Nick Pivetta, and some polished college-aged lefties in David Napoli, Cory Bafidis and Jake Walsh. I have 15 names here for 7-8 spots; Viera’s extended spring training could be busy this year.

Its frankly impossible to predict the short-season squads, since (especially Auburn) they exist to park newly signed draftees. However, I do see a ton of guys who competed and succeeded in the GCL this year who won’t necessarily make the Hagerstown squad, and I see them forming a good chunk of the Auburn squad. The rest of the Auburn squad will be populated with upper-end 2014 draftees and losers from the Hagerstown pitching staff competition. More of the same with the 2014 GCL squad, which was heavily tilted with DSL graduates this year. The Nats tend to focus on college arms and thus only small college guys are generally put in the GCL in their draft year.

Hagerstown starters. The rotation started the season with Anderson, Mooneyham, Pineyro, Pena and Encarnacion. It ended with Turnbull, Encarnacion, Bacus, Voth, and Johansen (with Dickson in the rotation most of the last half of the season as well). There were quite a few changes along the way; I counted 8 pitcher promotions throughout the year, including 6 starters. Lets take a look at the High-A starters for 2013, starting with the original five and then counting down by the number of starts.

Dixon Anderson got the ball opening day and threw 15 decent starts for the Suns, even making the all-star team. He started to struggle in June, hit the D/L at the end of that month and never re-appeared. As you might imagine, its hard to find out injury news for guys in the low minors, so the extent of his injury is unknown to me at this time. Which makes it kind of hard to predict where he’ll be next year. He had good component ratios and was a college draftee from a good baseball school, so you’d think he’s ready to move up. Outlook for next season: High-A rotation if he’s healthy.

Brett Mooneyham absolutely dominated low-A ball, posting a 1.94 ERA and going 10-3 in 93 innings before mercifully being pushed to Potomac. And this comes as no surprise; a 3rd round pick from a Pac-12 baseball power should dominate a bunch of kids 2 years his junior. I’m not sure what was left to prove in Hagerstown, especially when it became clear he was overpowering the league. To be fair, he did have a 6 week D/L stint that factored in; but once he came back and dominated towards the end of June he should have been pushed up. Outlook for next season: High-A rotation.

Ivan Pineyro threw 13 good starts for Hagerstown, was promoted, then got 3 starts in High-A before he was flipped for Scott Hairston. Outlook for next season: in the Chicago Cubs organization.

Ronald Pena started in the rotation for Hagerstown, then was pushed to the bullpen to become the long-man by June. He ended the season with decent enough numbers: 4-3 with a 3.48 ERA in 28 appearances (10 starts). His component ratios weren’t that great: 55/34 K/BB in 88 innings, but he did give the Suns a great playoff stint in long relief. Where does a guy like this go from here? Outlook for next season: high-A bullpen in a similar long-relief/spot starter role.

Pedro Encarnacion was the staff leader for Hagerstown this year, leading the team in starts, wins (technically tied with Mooneyham), innings pitched and K’s. The DSL graduate posted a 10-9 W/L record with 113/37 K/BB in 128 innings. He had a 1.19 whip on the year, and his FIP (3.50) flattered his ERA (3.58). Encarnacion right now represents the most accomplished DSL graduate in the entire system (when speaking of pitchers anyway), perhaps the best DSL pitching prospect we’ve had the entire time the team has been in Washington (who is more accomplished? Atahualpa Severino?), and I see no reason for him not to keep climbing the ranks next year. Outlook for next season: High-A rotation.

Nick Lee joined up with Hagerstown in mid May and gave the team 17 decent starts before hitting the D/L to make way for new acquisition Dakota Bacus in August (more on him later). He had impressive K rates (102 strikeouts in 91 innings) and a FIP (3.54) that flattered his ERA (3.95). He had a number of sparkling outings interspersed with a couple of failures, but for the most part was consistent this year. Outlook for next season: High-A rotation competition, possibly dropping back to Low-A if the numbers game doesn’t work out (he’s young; he’s still 22).

Kylin Turnbull lasted just three high-A starts, giving up 10 runs in 17 innings and was demoted to low-A. Repeating Hagerstown, he was again poor, putting in just 5 mediocre-to-bad starts before being sent to XST, where he toiled for a few weeks before joining up with Auburn to start the short-season. He pitched to a 1.96 ERA in four short-A starts and earned a promotion back to Hagerstown, where he finally settled down and finished out the year. Unfortunately he laid an egg in the playoffs, but a lot of our guys did. On the whole in Hagerstown for the year, he performed ably; a 3.58 ERA in 16 starts. Outlook for next season: Attempting High-A’s rotation again, but i’m wondering if he’s cut out to start. Despite his draft pedigree (4th rounder in 2011) he may be eventually bound for the bullpen as a lefty specialist.

Ian Dicksonwas acquired in early June from the Cubs when the Nats finally DFA’d Henry Rodriguez. I define this transaction as “getting something for nothing.” Dickson joined the Suns bullpen, showed his big arm, then was mostly a starter for the rest of the season. All in all for the Suns he had 16 appearances (10 starts) and posted a 4.39 ERA with more than a K/inning. Meanwhile his K/BB ratio was fantastic for such a strikeout guy (71/17 in 65 2/3 innings for the Suns this year). Is he a starter? Outlook for next season: High-A swingman/spot-starter.

Matt Purke over-matched low-A in 6 starts (posting 41 K’s in 29 innings) and was pushed to Potomac in early July. See the high-A writeup for more. Outlook for next season: High-A rotation.

Others who got just 1-2 starts for Hagerstown:

Austin Voth is an exciting 2013 draftee who blew through both short season teams to end up in the low-A rotation and get the opening playoff start. See the short-A writeup for more.

Jake Johansen is, as we all know, the Nats top draft pick from 2013. He (like Voth) pushed his way to low-A this season. See the short-A writeup for more.

Dakota Bacus came to the team in late August in trade for Kurt Suzuki; he spent most of the year in Oakland’s low-A team and performed ably. He posted a 3.65 ERA in 121 innings but showed a bit of a wild streak. Outlook for next season: High-A rotation competition.

Blake Schwartz blitzed through 4 starts in low-A and was quickly promoted to Potomac. See the high-A write-up for more. Outlook for next season: AA rotation.

Brian Dupra earned two promotions on the season to end up in Potomac’s bullpen. See the high-A write-up for more. Outlook for next season:High-A bullpen competition, possible release.

Reynaldo Lopez gave Hagerstown a spot start, getting called up from Auburn. See Short-A write-up for more.

Ryan Mattheus got a rehab “start.” See MLB write-up for more.

Hagerstown relievers. We’ll start with the closers and work backwards by IP from there. I will say this; when considering the future of middle relievers in low-A ball, everything is a crap shoot. Most of these guys are already “org guys” before they’ve even really started their careers and its really difficult to project where they may go. Unfortunately, lots of these guys may end up being post spring-training releases to make way for the newer crop of draftees.

Robert Benincasa led the Suns in saves despite being promoted mid-season. See the high-A write-up for more. Outlook for next season: AA/High-A bullpen.

Gilberto Mendez dominated low-A this season, arriving in June, posting a 0.91 ERA and striking out 33 in 29 2/3 innings while earning 7 saves. No reason to think the 2011 DR signing isn’t moving on up. I like this guy; so far he’s pitched pretty well at every level he’s hit. Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen, possibly the closer if Benincasa is in AA.

Derek Self couldn’t make the leap to High-A, and spent most of the season in Hagerstown. He posted decent numbers in low-A: a 3.41 ERA in 31 2/3 innings pitching mostly towards the back of the bullpen. Outlook for next season:trying the high-A bullpen again, possibly falling back to the low-A bullpen.

Travis Henke toiled most of the season in Hagerstown and got a late-season promotion. In Low-A he posted a 2.72 ERA in nearly 60 innings of mostly longer relief. He’s yet another decent find out of a small college (Arkansas – Little Rock) for the Nats scouting department. Outlook for next season:high-A bullpen.

Bryan Harper earned his keep in low-A this year, posting a 3.97 ERA in 45 innings. He’s got to work on his control though; 32 walks in those 45 innings completely counter balance his nice K/9 ratio. Outlook for next season:high-A bullpen competition as the matchup-lefty.

Cody Davis continued to pitch extremely well for an undrafted free agent signing, succeeding in his third straight season and third straight promotion. For Hagerstown in 2013; a 2.76 ERA in 42 innings, more than a K/inning, nearly a 4/1 K/BB ratio and an even better FIP (2.33) than his ERA. He’s clearly earned a shot at the next level. Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen.

Brian Rauh started the year in Hagerstown’s bullpen as an 8th inning guy, didn’t really pitch that well but was pushed up to Potomac anyway. See the high-A write-up for more. Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen, perhaps a starter. Perhaps a release candidate.

Christian Meza lasted about 5 weeks in Potomac, putting up a 6.62 ERA and greater than a 2.00 whip before getting demoted back to Hagerstown. For Hagerstown he was better but still not great; a 4.00 ERA over 31 innings. To be fair, his K rate was excellent and his FIP in such a short sample size was decent, but giving up 2 base runners an inning as a reliever is a no-no. He’s entering his 5th pro season and has thus far been unable to succeed above low-A ball; he may face a do-or-die spring training in 2014. He is a lefty though, and the lower parts of the system seem to lack lefty matchup guys, so this could be a saving grace. Outlook for next season:trying the high-A bullpen again, possible release candidate.

David Fischer started the year in Hagerstown but was quickly bumped up to Potomac, where he served as a long-man out of the pen. See the high-A write-up for more. Outlook for next season:High-A bullpen.

Will Hudgins started the year in Hagerstown’s bullpen, was demoted to Auburn, and abruptly retired in July. Odd in my opinion; his stats didn’t look that bad. Outlook for next season:out of baseball.

Other relievers who didn’t get enough innings to really pass much judgement:

Justin Thomas bounced around the system in his first pro year, pitching at 4 different levels. He only threw a grand total of 22 innings on the year so its hard to pass too much judgement. He was a college senior draftee so you’d have to think he’s better suited for full-season ball in 2014. Outlook for next season:High-A bullpen competition.

Chris McKenzie threw 12 innings of 5.25 ERA ball and was released, ending a 4 year tenure in the organization.

Jason Smith got lit up in 7+ innings and was released.

Corey Bafidis stopped in to Hagerstown for two appearances before heading to Auburn. See the short-A write-up.

Leonard Hollins had one appearance in low-A, got sent back to XST and spent the season in Auburn. See the short-A write-up.

Jake Walsh had 1 IP during a brief callup in August, then joined the Suns for the playoffs. See the GCL write-up for more.

Summary

The Suns were the first half champs on the backs of good (if over-aged) starting pitching. It is what it is; the Nationals are drafting older players, focusing on college guys, and its just natural that our low-A team is going to trend older. Based on what I see here, there’s going to be quite a competition for the High-A spots in 2014. There’s going to be more guys than spots, both in the rotation and in the bullpen.

A lot of the names who featured for the Suns in the playoffs may very well be back to start 2014, giving the team an excellent chance of repeating as first half champs in 2014.

Note: from here on down, there’s more than a few examples of small sample sizes. Plus, I know many readers here were frequent Potomac game attendees and may have different/better opinions than I. Please comment if you disagree with the sentiments here.

Potomac starters. The rotation started the season with Ray, Jordan, Cole, Turnbull and Hill. It ended with Purke, Demny, Mooneyham, Solis and Schwartz. There were quite a few changes along the way; I counted 9 promotions throughout the year. Lets take a look at the High-A starters for 2013, starting with the original five and then counting down by the number of starts. Because there were so many promotions, we’ll be referring to the AA and MLB posts frequently here for more detail.

Robbie Ray got the ball opening day and never looked back: he dominated high-A in the first half of the season (10.71 K/9 in 16 High-A starts) and continued the great work as one of the youngest starters in all of AA by the time the season was over. See the AA-writeup for more. Outlook for next season: in the Detroit organization.

Taylor Jordan gave up just 5 earned runs in his first 6 Potomac starts of the year, quickly earning him a promotion to AA. We all know the story from here; he blew up AA and then gave the MLB team 9 good starts before hitting his post TJ surgery innings limit. See AA’s and the MLB post for more detail. Outlook for next season: AAA rotation.

A. J. Colemade his triumphant return to the Nats organization, escaping his hellish 2012 season in the California League by coming back to Washington as bounty for Michael Morse. Cole threw about 100 innings in High-A across 18 starts and was 6-3 with a 4.25 ERA. His FIP was considerably better and he averaged more than a K/inning, and the team pushed him to AA as a 21 year old. See AA’s post for more. Outlook for next season: AA rotation to start, looking for a mid-season promotion to AAA.

Kylin Turnbull lasted just three high-A starts, giving up 10 runs in 17 innings and was demoted to low-A. See low-A’s post for more. Outlook for next season: Attempting High-A’s rotation again.

Blake Schwartz blitzed through 4 starts in low-A and was quickly promoted to Potomac, where he led the staff in starts, wins and innings. He finished the year with an 11-4 record with a 2.65 ERA in 132 innings. His ERA was a bit masked by a low BABIP, resulting in a FIP that was a point higher. He had a nice 4/1 K/BB ratio, a relatively small WHIP, and a decent enough K/9 rate. Another excellent small college find by the Nats scouting staff. Outlook for next season: You have to think he’s in the AA rotation; what more does he have to prove in high-A?

Sammy Solis made it back from Tommy John and gave Potomac 57 innings over 13 apperances with a decent 3.43 ERA. He did miss some time mid-season but came back pretty strong. He was also the P-Nats’ #1 starter in the playoffs, giving them one great and one not-so-great start in the post season. Solis was added to the 40-man ahead of the Rule-5 draft by virtue of his being eligible; now there’s talk about him possibly featuring as a lefty-matchup guy at the major league level. I can see that eventually, but not from the start of the 2014 season. I can see Solis going to AA to get some reps against better hitters and possibly covering for injuries/need later this year. Outlook for next season: AA rotation for now.

Brian Rauh started the year in Hagerstown’s bullpen as an 8th inning guy, didn’t really pitch that well but was pushed up to Potomac anyway, where he suddenly slotted in as a starter and ended up giving the team 12 starts over 16 appearances with a 4.22 ERA (4.81 FIP) over 64 innings. He made way in the rotation late in the season for Brett Mooneyham and worked out of the pen again for the playoffs. Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen, perhaps a starter. Perhaps a release candidate.

Matt Purke finally looked healthy after years of shoulder issues. He over matched low-A and was pushed to Potomac in early July. In 12 starts he was 5-3 with a 4.43 ERA, 1.39 whip, and 3.58 FIP. He got the ball in the ghird playoff game and pitched decently enough. What concerns me is his lack of dominance of A-ball hitters; he sported just a 6.05 K/9 rate as a starter in High-A this year. This from a former first round pick, a dominant lefty who was undefeated as a freshman in college in a good baseball conference. What are we to make of him at this point? On the bright side, he’s only 22 and still has a couple of option years left, so the Nats have some time to see what they have (unlike, say with Solis, who is 25 and needs to show something like right now). Outlook for next season: High-A starter once again, looking for a quick promotion to AA.

Paul Demny couldn’t make the jump to AA as a starter, and was demoted back to Potomac mid-season. He ended the season in Potomac’s rotation but (likely out of respect for what the Potomac guys accomplished this year) did not participate in the High-A playoffs. In 8 Potomac starts, he was 2-2 with a 3.69 ERA with about a K/inning, which he should have done considering that he’s in his 6th pro season. See the AA post for more. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen.

Brett Mooneyham pitched most of the year in Hagerstown before a late-season bump up to Potomac, where he promptly got shelled. See the low-A post for more. Outlook for next season:High-A rotation.

Other guys who got spot starts here and there:

Ivan Pineyro got 3 starts in High-A before he was flipped for Scott Hairston. See the low-A post for more. (Editor’s note: corrected for the right Hairston thanks to John C comment).

Brian Dupra got a few spot-starts; see the reliever section.

Marcos Frias posted a 7.59 ERA in two starts and a few relief appearances and was released 7/24/13. See the AA post for more.

Rob Gilliam made two forgettable starts in High-A before getting pushed up to AA. See the AA post for more.

Hector Sylvestre got called up from the rookie league to make one spot start. See GCL post for more.

Ross Detwiler and Ross Ohlendorf both made one rehab start for Potomac. See MLB post for more.

Potomac Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps. We’ll organize relievers by looking at closers first, then by innings pitched.

Robert Benincasa earned 17 saves in 25 apperances for Potomac to lead the team in saves. He earned his promotion after starting the season as Hagerstown’s closer. His numbers on the year: 34/9 K/BB in 30 innings, 3.30 ERA, 1.23 whip, 2.80 fip. His performance earned him a placement in the Arizona Fall League, where he posted a 4.00 ERA in 9 innings of work. Outlook for next season:Depending on the numbers, I could see him in the AA bullpen or beginning in High-A with a look for a quick promotion.

Richie Mirowski dominated to the tune of a 1.50 ERA across 48 high-A innings and earned his promotion. See the AA post for more. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen again, looking to force another promotion.

Rob Wort started the season in AA, struggled, missed 5 weeks with an injury, but then settled in as a back-of-the-bullpen guy for Potomac. In 34 innings he posted a 3.71 ERA but more impressively had a 48/29 K/BB ratio. Well, ok, the 29 walks in 34 innings wasn’t that impressive, but the 48 Ks was. Unfortunately for Wort, this is the FOURTH season in a row he’s been in Potomac. He had absolutely fantastic numbers in 2012 but couldn’t back them up. It may be safe to say he’s hit his limit organizationally. Outlook for next season:Another shot at AA bullpen but may end up back in High-A.

Greg Holt put up solid numbers as a middle reliever for Potomac, leading the bullpen in innings while going 9-0 with a 3.71 ERA in 70+ innings. I’m concerned with his 55/33 K/BB ratio in those 70 innings; that just seems like too many walks and not enough K’s. He’s progressed each of his three pro seasons; will he keep moving on up to AA for 2014? Outlook for next season:Possibly in AA’s bullpen, more likely back as high-A middle reliever.

Colin Bates had a really nice season for Potomac this year, posting nearly a 6-1 K/BB ratio while still striking out nearly 7 guys per 9 innings pitched. He posted a 2.61 ERA over 62 innings pitched, his second straight season advancing a level and posting a sub 3.00 ERA in the bullpen. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen.

Brian Dupra earned two promotions on the season to end up in Potomac’s bullpen, where he put up pedestrian numbers (1-7, 4.96 ERA, 1.49 whip). A college senior draftee with very little bonus money investment, Dupra’s usefulness to the organization may be at a limit. Outlook for next season:High-A bullpen competition, possible release.

David Fischer started the year in Hagerstown but was quickly bumped up to Potomac, where he served as a long-man out of the pen. He hit the D/L in mid August and never returned. On the year his numbers were pedestrian; 4.30 ERA in 44 innings. He did maintain a great K/9 rate (10.84). But Fischer’s problem is the same as his fellow low-bonus/college senior draftees currently toiling in A-ball; its move up or ship out. Outlook for next season:High-A bullpen.

Matt Grace threw 28 innings of quality relief and was bumped up to AA. See the AA write-up for more. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen to continue as the lefty matchup guy.

Rafael Martin didn’t make his first appearance until July, and when he got to Potomac he was great; a 1.04 ERA in 26 innings. As well he should; two years ago he was a closer in AA and posted a 1.77 era. What is he doing in A-Ball? The Mexican league free agent signing in 2009 seems like he should be back in AA, where he’s shown he can compete in the past. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen.

Derek Self couldn’t make the leap to High-A, getting demoted to Hagerstown after putting up a 6 ERA in 29 innings. See the low-A post for more. Outlook for next season:trying the high-A bullpen again.

Tyler Herron quickly showed he was too good for High-A and was promoted to Harrisburg after 20 innings. See the AA post for more. Outlook for next season:AAA bullpen.

Christian Meza lasted about 5 weeks in Potomac, putting up a 6.62 ERA and greater than a 2.00 whip before getting demoted back to Hagerstown. See the low-A post for more. Outlook for next season:trying the high-A bullpen again, possible release candidate.

Travis Henke toiled most of the season in Hagerstown and got a late-season promotion. See the low-A post for more. Outlook for next season:high-A bullpen.

Cameron Selik struggled through 10 appearances and 11 innings throughout the course of the season, missing a ton of time as he struggled with injury. He can’t go back to Potomac for the fourth straight season, can he? Outlook for next season:AA bullpen if healthy, otherwise perhaps an unfortunate release candidate.

Other guys who had short stints with Potomac this year:

Ben Hawkins threw 8 innings and was released.

Justin Thomas threw just one inning in Potomac during his tour of the low-minors this year; see the Low-A post for more.

Summary

No less than 18 guys got starts this year for Potomac, in a 142 game season. All five of their opening day starters were moved out (four up, one down) by mid-season, and yet the team still made the playoffs. That’s a great testament to the pitcher development going on in our low minors, and I think it is going to show on the big club very soon. Its not hard to see potential in a whole slew of the starters who passed through Potomac this year.

On the reliever side, there’s a couple of guys here who may make an impact, but there’s also a whole slew of right handed middle relievers who were college senior graduates who may very quickly find themselves pushed out by the later crops of college senior draftees.

Can Giolito live up to his potential? Photo unk via federalbaseball.com

Two off-seasons ago, I did an analysis piece discussing the “ceilings” of the various pitchers (focusing on starters in the system) on our major and minor league rosters. That led to some good discussions in the comments about what the definition of a pitcher’s ceiling is, about what a “#3″ starter is, etc.

Now that the 2013 season has ended, I thought it’d be a good topic to revisit and factor in recent performances and the last couple year’s worth of player movement in and out of the organization.

This post mostly focuses on the Starters we have in the organization. There’s no real mention of guys who are already in the bullpen (either in the majors or the minors) unless we have heard rumors of them converting back to being starters at some point or another.

Some setup

What do I mean by a #1, #2, #3, #4 or #5 starter? With some simple examples (from the 2011 post)

A #1 starter is a MLB-wide “Ace,” one of the best 15-20 pitchers in the league, someone who you’re genuinely surprised if he performs badly on a given day, opten mentioned in Cy Young conversations. Guys like Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander.

A #2 starter is a slight step down from your elite “Aces,” but still an excellent starter. Can challenge for the top awards if they put everything together for a season, but remains consistently above average. I see guys like Madison Bumgarner, Homer Bailey or James Shields in this category

A #3 starter is better than your league average pitcher, someone who is solid, consistent innings eater and who routinely gives you quality starts but not much more than that. I think of guys like Mark Buehrle, Kyle Lohse, or John Lackey here.

A #4 starter is basically someone defined as someone who’s a slight step above the back-of-the-rotation guy, usually a veteran guy who knows how to pitch but doesn’t have the best stuff to really go much beyond or a younger guy who is establishing a foothold of a career. Good examples from this year could include the likes of Kyle Kendrick, or Edwin Jackson or Bronson Arroyo.

A #5 starter is just good enough to fill out your rotation. Starters at the back end who all you’re hoping for is 6 innings and keeping your team in the game. Think of someone like Jason Marquis at this point in his career, or Ryan Vogelsong.

For clarity; if your team has three excellent pitchers, it does not mean that a league-wide ace is defined by these standards as a “#3″ starter. When the Phillies big 3 of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels were all healthy and firing on all cylinders a couple of years back, all three were #1 starters in my book. Just because Hamels pitched third in the rotation didn’t mean he was a “#3 starter.”

Also before getting going, a quick discussion on “ceiling” versus “predictions” and what I’m trying to do here. As was pointed out when I posted on this topic in 2011, a pitcher’s “ceiling” is quite literally the highest level of capability that we can expect that pitcher to accomplish given a perfect set of circumstances. Scouts routinely talk about player “ceilings” and “number X” starters as a convenient way to speak a common language when describing a pitcher. I like to be a bit more grounded in predicting what may happen to pitchers, so this analysis is less about the perfect-scenario “ceiling” as it is a thoughtful prediction on where a guy may eventually fit in given his talents and his performances as compared to scouting reports and industry buzz.

Updated ceiling predictions for Nats pitchers post 2013 season:

Nationals Starter Ceilings (per scouting reports, personal observations). I’m not going to include any MLFAs here, assuming that they’re all either 4-A or minor league starters as a ceiling. I’m also only really going down to full-season ball guys, throwing in a couple of our higher-end prospects. Its just impossible to really project guys in rookie ball unless you’re a professional scout.

#1 Starters: Stephen Strasburg is already an “Ace” starter in this league, ranking up among the 15-20 best arms out there. However he’s no longer considered in the same class as the likes of Kershaw, thanks to injury and a curious lack of dominance this year (have a draft post on this topic that i’ll expand on later). Lucas Giolito is widely considered the Nats top prospect and an easy future #1 pitching prospect. Big guy, big arm, and by all accounts has come back post TJ surgery. The BA guys think that he could be the #1 prospect in the entire minors with another dominant 2014. How quickly can he move through the minors? Can he stay healthy? Right around the time Giolito arrives, the Nats “3 big names” could all be at the end of their current contracts and an interesting conundrum could face the team; keep the band together? Or let these guys go and re-load/re-build?

#2 Starters: Just as Gio Gonzalez made the leap to a #2 starter with his Cy Young challenging 2012, Jordan Zimmermann has made that leap by virtue of his near-20 win season in 2013. I believe these two guys can stay as #2 starters for the next few years, until they hit the regression stages of their careers.

#3 Starters: A.J. Cole has regained his mojo after bouncing around the California league and advanced to AA this year. He features a significant fastball and but complaints in the scouting world about his secondary stuff lead him to a #3 starter prediction. I think he should be a #2 ceiling, and perhaps a spring training working with the Nats staff can get him back where we thought he was when we drafted him. I’m sure picking Robbie Ray to have a higher likely ceiling than his 2013 AA counterparts would be mocked. But look at the evidence: he’s the same age and same draft class as Cole and has consistently out-performed him when they’ve been on the same team. He’s lefty, he averaged well over a K/inning this year, and suddenly he’s 22 and he may be “done” with AA. Why aren’t his credentials higher with prospect-watchers? It isn’t has if he’s a soft-tosser; he throws decent stuff from the left side. I continue to think he’ll move along with Cole and they’ll be promoted to the majors within a couple of weeks of each other, perhaps mid 2015.

#4 Starters: If you want to say I’m crazy for thinking that Tanner Roark can maintain his September pace as a starter for this team, I can understand. I’m not personally convinced that he’s going to be a mediocre 6th inning reliever or continue to be a Kris Medlen-in-2012 anomoly who continues to get guys out. For now, i’m rooting for the better story. Meanwhile I’m also not convinced that I have Taylor Jordan pegged properly; I think honestly he could be a #3 pitcher in the league. This lack of real punch-out capabilities is what’s holding him back for now. That being said, guys don’t just come up to the majors and post a 3.66 ERA. For now, a #4 ceiling sounds good.

#5 Starters: I’ve come to believe that Ross Detwiler‘s reached his ceiling; his 2012 season is as good as we’re going to see him. Not because of a lack of talent; its because he just can’t stay healthy. I’ve seen and heard reports that Detwiler’s stuff is fantastic; that’s great on paper but he just can’t seem to translate that to the big club on a consistent basis. I would not shed a tear if he headed to the bullpen, other than to think that its a waste of his talents. I also feel like Sammy Solis will stay as a starter and continue to climb up the ranks, and tops out as a 5th starter just by virtue of his being left handed. There’s just something to be said about being a lefty with decent stuff being able to hang around the league (think of someone like Eric Stults).

MLB Bullpen: Right now i’m projecting a whole handful of our good minor league starters to eventually get transitioned to the bullpen. Which is good and bad; good for this team as they continue to develop arms and continue to have quality guys in the pen. But bad in that it predicts a severe thinning of the starting pitching corps. First off, I think the Christian Garcia as starter experiment is over; he needs to focus on being a reliever so that he can stay healthy and contribute. I believe that Ross Ohlendorf‘s time as a starter is over, but he should slot in nicely as the 7th guy/long-man/spot-starter that this team will need here and there in 2014. The more I think about Nathan Karns, the more I think he’d make an excellent setup guy. Big arm, big fast-ball, not really that much secondary stuff. He got hit hard as a starter; in shorter stints he could dial it up more and focus on his limited arsenal. Unfortunately I think Matthew Purke may be headed to the pen as well, but his gun-slinger action could make him an excellent later-innings pitcher, perhaps even a closer, if he can translate that to a bit more velocity. Lastly the reported two biggest arms in the minors (Jake Johansen and Blake Treinen) project for now as bullpen guys. Again, I hope I’m wrong, but so far the evidence seems to point at big velocity and little else.

What is a 4-A starter? A guy basically who looks good in AAA but who, for whatever reason, can’t translate that success to the Majors. They may get a call-up here and there but never pitch well enough to stick. This is how I see a handful of guys ending up: Brad Meyers has been hanging around this status for several seasons and just can’t get a break. I’ve also tagged some guys with good numbers in the lower minors but with fringy scouting reports with this for now, thinking that a lack of a dominant fastball means they’ll stay as a starter until they reach their peak. Taylor Hill, Blake Schwartz, and Austin Voth all seem to fit this bill. Lastly the curious lack of dominance of Brett Mooneyham lends me to believe he’ll end up in this predicament as well. I hope I’m wrong here; I’d love to see these guys take the leap, or (save that) find success in the bullpen.

Career Minors Starter: Unfortunately, I think we’ve seen the best that Danny Rosenbaum and Yunesky Maya can give; they’ve both had shots at a major league roster and couldn’t stay. I think they’ll retire as AAA starters. The rest of these guys listed are mediocre-to-decent starters in the system who don’t seem to be listed as true prospects. I’m specifically disappointed thus far in Kylin Turnbull, who couldn’t make the leap to high A and seems like he needs to make some sort of adjustment in 2014.

Career Minors Bullpen guys: When Ryan Perry passed through waivers off the 40-man roster, his chances of ever making it back to the majors took a huge dent. Paul Demny‘s precipitous drop this season also seems to spell doom for his career. And apropos of nothing else, Ronald Pena seems like he has achieved the dreaded “organizational arm” tag.

On the bright side, the top-heavy nature of this list gives fans optimism for the power of this rotation for years to come. In 3 year’s time (if Giolito, Ray and Cole all matriculate as expected) you’d have two Aces, two #2s and two #3s to choose from for your rotation. That’s significant, considering that lots of teams are scraping the bottom of the barrel for their 5th starter. If Ray and Cole turn into servicable major leaguers, you could trade/let go a guy who gets too expensive (Gonzalez or Zimmermann) with an able, cheap replacement. Maybe I’m too high on Ray and Cole (who are both youngsters) … but then again maybe i’m too low on Jordan and Roark (both of whom have already shown the ability get major league hitters out).

Here’s the final Minor League Rotation Review post for the season (Here’s April 2013, May 2013, June 2013 and July 2013‘s posts for historical viewing). Since the minor league seasons mostly end right after the Labor Day weekend, this post actually includes a few days in September for each non-playoff team. We’ll also include the playoff starts for those teams that made it, which has pushed this post well into September (and very late) to include all the playoff starts for our many minor league playoff teams.

For each level, I’ll put out the rotation members, their “letter grades” per start for this month only, and then throw in a quick link to show their seasonal stats for context. For each team there are 3 distinct groups of starters: the top group of 5-6 Starters per level is the “current rotation” as best as I can figure it, then the next section of pitchers are swing-men or spot-starters or guys who had “2nd start” or longer outings worthy of grading, followed by a 3rd group of guys who are generally no longer with the team (either by D/L, promotion, demotion or release). I’ve only listed the third category if something transactionally has happened to the player this particular month.

Discussion: Syracuse drug itself to the finish line of a disappointing season withat least some stability in the rotation. The 5 guys standing at the end were basically the rotation for the entire month. Tanner Roark was rewarded for a great season by getting called up to provide some long relief in the MLB bullpen and 6 weeks later is now 7-0 with the best ERA for any pitcher with more than 40 innings in the entire MLB. Roark’s trade-mate Ryan Tatusko really struggled down the stretch and finishes with a 4.33 ERA and a 1.58 whip on the season. Meanwhile, Caleb Clay continues his career resurgence and may have put himself in place to pick his spot in MLFA next year (well, unless the Nats hold onto him by putting him on the 40-man, not a bad idea). Jeff Mandel and Yunesky Maya pitched well while playing out the string; both are MLFAs and both may choose to look elsewhere.

Discussion: Harrisburg played great down the stretch to reach the playoffs, then won a series before losing in the League Final. Nathan Karns recovered from his to really pitch well in August and in the first round of the playoffs before getting hammered in the league final series. Robbie Ray did nothing to damage his career advancement, pitching a gem in his playoff appearance. Fellow HS phenom draftee A.J. Cole pitched well enough in the playoffs, good enough to get the wins each time.

Discussion: Blake Schwartz was the most consistent of the starters for Potomac this month (and this season really). Mooneyham struggled after his promotion but saved his best game for the playoffs. Matthew Purke pitched decently in the month but his seasonal numbers remain poor. Sammy Solis had a couple of dud outings, including his playoff appearance, but on the whole I think his 2013 is a success coming off surgery. Paul Demny seems like he’s bound for the bullpen soon; he’s shown multiple times he cannot compete as a starter above the high-A level.

Discussion: I wonder how it played in the Hagerstown clubhouse that 3/5ths of their playoff rotation had been with the team less than 3 weeks? Dakota Bacus especially; he was acquired, made one start and was a playoff starter. Austin Voth and Jake Johansen were due promotions no doubt, but to immediately get thrown into the low-A playofs in place of guys who had worked longer and harder to get the Suns there seems, well, wrong. Nonetheless, longer serving Sun pitchers such as Ronald Pena, Kylin Turnbull and Pedro Encarnacion (not Edwin, thanks to commenter Melissa) all finished off good seasons and will look at high-A next spring.

Discussion: Lots of ugly pitching lines for Auburn this year. Casey Selsor and Nick Pivetta struggled to stay in the rotation, the team struggled to replace the production they got out of promoted starters Voth and Johansen, and the results showed on the field. Robert Orlan was the staff-leader in innings and seems like a good bet for a full-season starter’s job next year. The rest of this motley crue of starters leaves Auburn with ERAs in the 4s and 5s (or higher) and likely bullpen roles going forward.

GCL’s trio of dominant pitchers (Jefry Rodriguez, Wander Suero and Hector Silvestre) powered the team to an easy GCL victory after its record breaking season. Most of the rest of the staff had graded outings of chunks of like 3-4 innings, so it was difficult to really pass judgement on the chances of sticking as a starter. Lucas Giolito of course earned his promotion to short-A at the end of the season and seems a good bet to be a low-A migrating to high-A starter in 2014.

Lucas Giolito still leads the line of the Nats 2012 draft class. Photo unk via federalbaseball.com

I recently did a John Sickels style review of all our 2013 draft picks. And I thought it’d be fun to do the same for our 2012 draft class one year in (see here for the 2012 version of the post). Lets check in to see how these guys are doing in their 2nd pro seasons.

As always; the Big Board and the Draft Tracker are the two best Nats prospect resources out there. Thanks SpringfieldFan for doing all that you do. Stats are pulled from milb.com and fangraphs.com and are current as of the end of the regular minor league seasons.

Finally, at the end of each writeup i’ll put in a color coded trending line (my own opinion) for the player: Green for Trending Up, Blue for Trending steady, red for Trending Down.

Round 1: (#16 overall) Lucas Giolito HS RH Starting pitcher: 2-1, 1.94 ERA with 39/14 k/bb in 36 2/3 innings, 28 hits mostly in the GCL. All Nats prospect fans should know of Giolito’s status these days; he has come back from surgery, pitched effectively in the rookie league and was lights out in 3 starts in short-A (one run conceded in 14 innings). Per comments and scouting reports his velocity is back, he seems healthy, and he could be just a season away from being breathlessly talked about as one of the best prospects in the game. Should feature in full-season ball (likely starting in low-A with an eye for finishing in high-A) in 2014. Trending Up.

Round 2: (80) Tony Renda, Coll Jr 2B: .294/.380/.405 with 3 homers, 68 walks, 65 Ks in 521 ABs at Hagerstown. Also was 30 for 36 on the basepaths. Those are solid full season numbers. I like that Renda makes a lot of contact; a K rate of just 12% on the year isn’t too bad. Renda was a young college draftee (he turned 22 in January of this year), so he isn’t necessarily “too old” for Hagerstown. He will continue to move up the food chain in 2014. Trending Up.

Round 3: (111) Brett Mooneyham, Coll Jr LH starting pitcher: 10-6, 3.19 ERA with 85/54 k/bb in 104 1/3 innings, 67 hits mostly for Hagerstown. I was worried when Mooneyham couldn’t break the high-A roster, given his age and draft day pedigree. He started out strong, endured a D/L stint, then dominated towards the end of the season, forcing a promotion. In high-A? Not so great; he had three awful starts to close out the season. Mooneyham continues to “look” like a better pitcher than his numbers; he’s too wild, he doesn’t miss as many bats as you like, but he gets the job done (well, in low-A anyway). Clearly he’s going to be in the Potomac Rotation for 2014; lets see how he does. But i’m beginning to question his true “ceiling” in this organization; is he going to top out like a Danny Rosenbaum, a mediocre AAA starter? Trending Steady.

Round 4: (144) Brandon Miller Coll Sr Corner OF: .255/.317/.457 with 20 homers, 41 walks, 164 strikeouts in 505 at bats splite between Hagerstown and Potomac. His statline seemed to feature as a power hitting corner outfielder in Hagerstown: 18 homers in 103 games, a homer every 22 at-bats or so. But then in Potomac he’s hit .300 with a .350 OBP and just two homers in 110 at-bats. It could be a case of being slightly old for low-A: he turns 24 in a month’s time. Either way, he really needs to cut down on the K’s; 164/505 equates with nearly a 33% strike-out rate. That’s going to catch up to him unless he starts hitting 40 homers instead of 20. Otherwise, he’s done nothing to jeopardize his continued rise up the system for 2014. Trending Steady.

Round 5: (174) Spencer Kieboom, Coll Jr C: 6 at-bats in 4 games for the GCL Nats in late August; a lost season for Kieboom due to Tommy John surgery undergone in early 2013. Since he’s not a pitcher, he returned to the field in less than a year’s time. But he’s lost a year of development and now will compete with 2012 draftee catchers such as Geoff Parrott and rising DSL grads like Pedro Severino for playing time in the full-season A-ball teams in 2014. Trending Down.

Round 6: (204) Hayden Jennings, HS OF/CF: .248/.313/.343 with 0 homers, 11 walks, 48 Ks in 137 at-bats while repeating the GCL in 2013. Jennings struggled in his rookie league pro debut in 2012 and repeated the level, improving his OPS nearly 200 points. He has improve upon a horrible strikeout rate but still is striking out 35% of the time. That’s really not a good sign for the leadoff/CF guy he seems to project as right now; he needs to show a much higher OBP, put more balls in play, and do more on the basepaths (12 SBs in 44 games). I think he gets moved up for 2014, but may really struggle in full-season ball. Trending down.

Round 7: (234) Robert Benincasa, Coll Jr. RH relief pitcher: 0-5 with 27 saves, 3.00 ERA with 64/14 K/BB in 51 IP, 45 hits split between Hagerstown and Potomac. Benincasa has settled into a closer role, getting 10 saves for Hagerstown to open the season before earning a promotion to Potomac about halfway through the season and continuing as their closer. His K/BB rate stayed high even with the promotion, though his ERA and hits/9 crept up a bit. He seems set to move up to Harrisburg and could compete with Richie Mirowski for the AA closer role in 2014. Trending up.

Round 8: (264) Stephen Perez, Coll Jr. SS: .248/.303/.326 with 4 homers, 11 walks, 40 Ks in 107 at-bats in low-A Hagerstown. Wow; 107 strikeouts in 432 at-bats; 25%. You just can’t have a 25% strikeout rate for a weak hitting, no power middle infielder. These numbers were in line with his short-season numbers too. He’s a college junior draftee from a very good baseball school (U of Miami) in low-A who looks like a draft bust right now. Trending down.

Round 9:(294) Derek Self, Coll Sr. RH relief pitcher: 4-5 with 8 saves, 4.66 ERA with 49/16 K/BB in 56 IP, 64 hits split between Hagerstown and Potomac. Self started in Potomac, had a 6.29 ERA in 23 apperances and was demoted mid-season to Hagerstown. In low-A he had more respectable numbers but nothing eye-popping. He was a low-bonus college senior draftee who’s struggling to make a mark in a league where he’s one of the older guys out there. I could see him being a post-2014 spring training cut. Trending down.

Round 10: (324) Craig Manuel, Coll Sr C: .282/.364/.347 with 1 homer, 24 walks, 20 Ks in 170 at-bats mostly in low-A Hagerstown. He missed a month mid-season, then was mostly the backup to Adrian Nieto in Hagerstown. Unfortunately, a low-bonus college senior draftee who’s backing up guys in low-A probably isn’t long for the organization. He may be a victim of the catcher numbers game at some point (though, that being said, the team only drafted one catcher in 2013; maybe he sticks around for a while). Trending down.

Round 11: (354) Brian Rauh, Coll Jr RH starter/reliever: 7-4, 4.50 ERA with 68/34 K/BB in 106 IP, 107 hits split between Hagerstown and Potomac. An odd season for Rauh; he struggled in middle relief in low-A (posting a 5.21 ERA), then was promoted to Potomac, where he was installed as a starter. He had 12 mostly mediocre starts (4.22 ERA) before being moved to the bullpen the last week of the season when Brett Mooneyham was promoted up. Is he a starter? Is he a reliever? More time in the system is apparently needed; i’m guessing he begins in the bullpen in high-A next year. Trending Steady.

Round 12: (384) Carlos Lopez, Coll Sr 1B: .296/.441/.407 with 0 homers, 7 walks, 7 Ks in 27 at-bats in low-A Hagerstown. Lopez went on the 7-day DL in mid-April after just 9 games and never came off. I cannot find word of his injury. But with newly drafted James Yezzo in the mix as a 1B-only draftee, Lopez has his work cut out for himself to retain his standing in the organization. Especially considering that he was a College senior sign who is positionally limited and hasn’t shown much in the way of power at the professional level. Trending down.

Round 13: (414) Elliott Waterman, Coll Jr LH reliever: 2-0, 2.96 ERA with 13/12 K/BB in 24 1/3 IP split between the two short season teams. Waterman performed poorly in Short-A last year, did not make a full-season team out of camp, then got hammered again in his early outings for Auburn this year before getting demoted to rookie ball. He pitched better in the GCL, eventually earning a call-back to Auburn but has not appeared since 8/31/13. He’s still relatively young (does not turn 23 until November) and he’s a big tall lefty, but he’s putting too many guys on base and not getting enough swing and miss stuff to stick as a situational arm. He may get one more spring training but it wouldn’t surprise me to see him cut loose if he doesn’t make a full-season team in 2014. Trending down.

Round 14: (444) Jordan Poole, Juco-2 corner OF: .222/.278/.403 with 3 homers, 6 walks, 40 Ks in 72 at-bats split between the two short season teams. I’ll repeat this metric: 40 Ks in 72 at-bats. He struggled in Auburn and then got hurt in late July, missing 3 weeks. He finished the season in Rookie ball, probably a combination rehab assignment/demotion. He does feature some pop; his isolated slugging of .441 in Auburn shows some promise. But that’s a lot of strikeouts. He’s still very young (he turned 22 just this week) so he will continue in the system. Trending down.

Round 16: (504) Ronald Pena, Juco-2 RH starter/reliever: 4-3, 3.48 ERA with 55/34 K/BB in 88 IP for Hagerstown. Pena started the season in the Hagerstown rotation, where he stayed mostly until the end of May. He had a 4.70 ERA as a starter on the season; not good enough given the arms matriculating upwards. From there he worked the bullpen, where in the same number of innings his Ks were up, his walks down and his hits allowed down. It seems to me he’s bullpen-bound from here. Trending Steady.

Round 17: (534) Blake Schwartz, Coll Sr RH Starting pitcher: 13-4, 2.51 ERA with 101/28 in 147 IP for Hagerstown and Potomac. Schwartz started the year in the Hagerstown rotation and ended it in Potomac, getting the ball for their 2nd playoff game. After striking out 21 guys in his first 14 low-A innings, he was quickly promoted up and threw 132 additional innings in Potomac. His ERA was low upon promotion, he fared equally well against lefties and righties. I’d like to see more K’s, but it is hard to argue with the results. He had to be in the “player of the year” discussions for the organization. So far looking like a great find this late in the draft from a small school. Trending up.

Round 18: (564) David Fischer, Coll Sr RH reliever: 5-0, 4.06 era with 81/52 K/BB in 58 IP for Hagerstown and Potomac. He got a quick bump up from Hagerstown after just 9 apperances and spent the bulk of the season in Potomac’s bullpen providing longer relief stints every few days. He hit the D/L in mid August and never came back off of it. This beanpole (6’5″ 175lbs) clearly has some strikeout type stuff (53 Ks in his 44 high-A innings) but he is also wild as hell (44 walks in 44 innings to go with 8 wild pitches and 5 HBPs in high-A). It sounds like someone needs to coach Nuke LaLoosh up here. Trending Steady.

Round 19: (594) Bryan Lippincott, Coll Sr 1B: .273/.346/.434 with 7 homers, 25 walks, 39 Ks in 198 at-bats split between Auburn and Hagerstown. A small-college senior signee, Lippincott spent all of 2012 in the GCL (where he clearly was “old for the level.”). In 2013, he waited for short-season to start, then slugged .464 in 44 games for Auburn before getting the call-up to Hagerstown to play for the team during the playoffs. He struggled in 10 playoff games (understandible; they’re the best teams in the league) but otherwise had a nice season. He’s seemingly set to compete for perhaps the 1B or DH in High-A for 2014. Trending Steady.

Round 20: (624) James Brooks, Coll SR SS/3B: Released May 2013; he was a senior sign who played last season mostly in the GCL, save for a 2 week stretch where he went 1-32 in Short-A. Apparently he didn’t make a team out of spring training and was released just before Short seasons started.

Round 21: (654) Austin Chubb, Coll Sr C: .200/.241/.238 with 0 homers, 2 walks, 12 Ks in 105 at-bats for Auburn. Chubb was a part-time catcher, splitting time with others in Auburn, and followed up his generally poor 2012 GCL numbers with even worse numbers in 2013. He had just two walks in 100+ plate appearances? With no power to show for it? Chubb may not be long for the organization, despite the positional scarcity. Trending Down.

Round 23: (714) Casey Selsor, Coll Sr LH Starter/Reliever: 0-6, 4.29 ERA with 30/14 in 42 1/3 innings, 56 hits for Auburn. Selsor was drafted with 2-way capabilities but has only pitched for the Nats. He started the season in Auburn’s rotation, got demoted to the bullpen after 6 starts, but eventually made his way back into the rotation in some sense by the time the season was over. He gave up a ton of baserunners, but his babip was high. Despite a 4.29 ERA his FIP for the year was just 3.15. So he pitched better than his stats look. Trending Steady.

Round 24: (744) Kevin Dicharry, Coll SR RH pitcher: 0-2, 14.54 ERA with 4/2 K/BB in 4 1/3 innings, 8 hits for Auburn. Dicharry pitched very poorly in his first three Auburn appearances and then was released 7/1/13. Without any knowledge of how well he recovered from the arm issues he had in college, this seems like an incredibly quick release considering how well he pitched (even if he was overaged) last year in the GCL.

Round 25: (774) Freddy Avis, RHP: didn’t sign. Attending Stanford, where in 2013 he appeared in exactly one game and pitched 2 innings before suffering a season-ending injury. Google research is spotty, but it seems like he aggravated the same knee which he had ACL surgery on in 2012 and which ended his HS career prematurely.

Round 26: (804) Skye Bolt, RHP: didn’t sign. Attending UNC, where in 2013 he hit .349/.449/.550 as a freshman starter for one of the best teams in the nation. That’s a pretty darn impressive slash line for a freshman in the ACC. Those are 1st round pick numbers.

Round 27: (834) Cody Poteet, RHP: didn’t sign. Attending UCLA, where in 2013 as a mid-week starter/weekend reliever he was 4-6, 4.84 ERA with 56/31 K/BB in 70+ innings for the CWS champions. We don’t have advanced stats, but his BAA of .227 seems to indicate his ERA was incredibly unlucky. He should be a weekend starter for UCLA next season.

Round 28: (864) Hunter Bailey, Coll Sr SS/2B: .182/.265/.205 with 0 homers, 4 walks, 11 Ks in 44 low-A at bats earlier this season. Bailey was released May 2013. The jump from GCL to full-season ball proved too much for Bailey and he was cut loose as an expendible backup middle-infielder in a system full of them rising quickly up the ranks.

Round 29: (894) Leonard Hollins, Juco RH reliever: 1-4, 2.91 ERA with 36/16 in 46 1/3 innings, 48 hits mostly for Auburn. The submariner made a successful jump to short-A out of the GCL, and still has not given up a professional home-run. All we have to do now is figure out if he’s “Leonard” or if he’s “L.J.” since milb.com and Fangraphs differ in their names for him. Trending Up.

Round 30: (924) Robert Orlan Coll Jr LH Starter: 1-5, 3.65 ERA with 47/22 K/BB in 56 2/3 innings, 54 hits for Auburn. Orlan was the leading innings-eater for Auburn in 2013 after missing the whole 2012 season following TJ surgery. Orlan kept the ball down, pitched better than his ERA shows (3.38 fip) and shows no reason not to continue up the chain and compete for rotation jobs in full season ball next year. As I said last year, he could be a great sleeper pick. Trending Up.

Round 31: (954) Michael Boyden Coll Sr RH reliever: 0-0, 4.61 ERA with 15/14 K/BB in 13 2/3 innings, 17 hits for GCL. 14 walks and 17 hits equates with a balloned 2.27 whip for this 23-year old in the rookie league (which means he’s likely throwing against guys 4-5 years younger than he is). It is hard to understand why he was back in the GCL after having shown he could handle Short-A last year. Either way, his control issues from last year caught up with him in 2013 and I don’t think he’ll be long for the organization. Trending Down.

Round 32: (984) Michael Mudron, Coll Sr LH reliever: 1-3, 6.82 ERA with 32/15 K/BB in 30 1/3 innings, 43 hits. Great K/9 rates for a matchup lefty (reminder: milb.com lists him as a RHP when he’s actually a lefty). His game-logs show what a weird season he had: of the 23 earned runs he gave up in his 30 innings, 20 of them came in four awful outings, highlighted by his 8/24/13 outing: he gave up 5 hits and 5 walks in an inning and a third, resulting in 6 earned runs. These factors contributed to his FIP being just 2.77, a huge delta from his ugly ERA. I’d imagine this stat line makes it hard for higher-ups to evaluate him. Nonetheless, he should feature in a full-season bullpen in 2014. Trending Steady.

Round 33: (1014) Mike McQuillan, Coll Sr 2B/3B: .277/.372/.367 with 2 homers, 40 walks, 66 K’s in 264 low-A at-bats (skipping 5 rehab games he did in the GCL). As with last year, good average and great OBP, but little to no pop. He missed 2 full months of the season with an injury that I cannot easily google. Otherwise he continues to profile as an undersized, speedy 2nd baseman with good OBP capabilities. He’ll move up to Potomac in 2014. Trending Steady.

Round 35: Corey Bafidis, LHP: didn’t sign but Washington picked him in 2013. From the 2013 version of this post: Coll Sr LH relief pitcher. 2-0, 2.73 ERA with 22/13 K/BB in 26 1/3 relief innings mostly in Auburn, 18 hits. He got pushed to low-A too early, settled into short-A where he probably belonged to begin with, and pitched relatively well for 20 innings. Too many walks for a relief pitcher, though, he’ll have to work on that. He mostly worked in 2 inning stints and never got any looks at starting. Trending steady.

Round 36: Max Ungar, C: didn’t sign. Attending Division III Denison, where he does not appear to be playing baseball at all. Seems to have quit the sport. Was th is a “favor draft pick” to give someone’s friend’s kid some notariety?

Round 39: Mitchell Williams, C: didn’t sign. Attended the Marion Military Institute in Alabama, for which I cannot find any current stats.

Round 40: Ricky Gutierrez, CF: didn’t sign. Presumably playing football for U-Conn, as per the Draft Tracker. I could not find any individual football stats for him in rudimentary googling.

Summary: our top end guys are doing well and we may have some finds in the later rounds. On the downside, most of the rest of the first round picks are struggling. Such is the nature of the new draft classes; picks 7-10 are more like 25th rounders while picks 11-15 are more like 6th-10.

Most people have heard about the historic Nats Gulf Coast Rookie league team’s performance this year, but the Nats farm teams were great up and down the system in 2013. Here’s a recap of each level’s season, in case you havn’t already gotten the summary from Dave Huzzard or Luke Erickson:

AAA Syracuse: Last place, International League North. Season record: 66-78. Contrary to the title of this article, our AAA team was pretty bad this year. Culprets? A middle-of-the road offense and a relatively weak pitching staff (they were easily last in the league in strikeouts, lower ranked in other major pitching categories).

High-A Potomac: 1st half AND 2nd half champions, Carolina League North. Season Record: 84-55. Winning both halfs earned them full home field advantage in the first round of the divisional playoffs, which they used to beat Lynchburg easily enough. However in the Carolina league final the Nats lost both games at home before getting swept by Salem in the league championship series (Salem is Boston’s high-A affiliate).

Low-A Hagerstown: 1st half champs of the South Atlantic League Northern. Season Record: 80-57. They dispatched the 2nd half champs from West Virginia in the divisional series to face Savannah in the Sally League championship. After splitting the first two games at home, Hagerstown traveled to Savannah and lost two straight to drop the championship (Savannah is the New York Mets’ low-A affiliate).

Short-A Auburn: Last place, NY-Penn Pinckney. 26-49. Culprets include a team .230 batting average and near league bottom OPS combined with the worst team ERA and worst team WHIP in the league. Bad hitting and the worse pitching equates with last place.

Rookie GCL Nats: 1st place, GCL League East with an amazing 49-9 record. That according to press releases by the team is the highest W/L percentage in (domestic) minor league basebal history. Wow. They then swept the GCL Red Sox to win the GCL championship.

So that’s four playoff teams out of six US affiliates (I often ignore the DSL, fairly or otherwise, since it has such a low percentage of players even making it to the US leagues, let alone advancing into relevance).

What makes these performances even more amazing, especially for Potomac, is that they persevered on despite losing significant numbers of pitchers through out the season to promotion. Quick glances:

Harrisburg lost 3 starters (Clay, Jordan, Hill) and two relievers (Broadway and Krol) to promotions.

Potomac lost an entire rotation of starters (Jordan, Gilliam, Hill, Ray and Cole) in addition to four other relivers (Herron, Grace, Frias and Mirowski).

Hagerstown graduated at least 5 starters (Schwartz, Dupra, Rauh, Purke and Mooneyham), traded another starter (Pineyro) and matriculated a couple of relievers along the way (Benincasa and Henke).

I know this only focuses on arms on these minor league teams, and that isn’t necessarily fair to the offense, but Potomac especially was amazing in chugging along while losing its best starter month after month to promotion.